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Somerset Maugham</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Of Human Bondage</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: W. Somerset Maugham</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October, 1995 [eBook #351]<br /> +[Most recently updated: December 5, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF HUMAN BONDAGE ***</div> + +<h1>Of Human Bondage</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by W. Somerset Maugham</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>I</h2> + +<p> +The day broke gray and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness +in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a +child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house +opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child’s bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Wake up, Philip,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She pulled down the bed-clothes, took him in her arms, and carried him +downstairs. He was only half awake. +</p> + +<p> +“Your mother wants you,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She opened the door of a room on the floor below and took the child over to a +bed in which a woman was lying. It was his mother. She stretched out her arms, +and the child nestled by her side. He did not ask why he had been awakened. The +woman kissed his eyes, and with thin, small hands felt the warm body through +his white flannel nightgown. She pressed him closer to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sleepy, darling?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was so weak that it seemed to come already from a great distance. The +child did not answer, but smiled comfortably. He was very happy in the large, +warm bed, with those soft arms about him. He tried to make himself smaller +still as he cuddled up against his mother, and he kissed her sleepily. In a +moment he closed his eyes and was fast asleep. The doctor came forwards and +stood by the bed-side. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t take him away yet,” she moaned. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor, without answering, looked at her gravely. Knowing she would not be +allowed to keep the child much longer, the woman kissed him again; and she +passed her hand down his body till she came to his feet; she held the right +foot in her hand and felt the five small toes; and then slowly passed her hand +over the left one. She gave a sob. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” said the doctor. “You’re +tired.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, unable to speak, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. The +doctor bent down. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me take him.” +</p> + +<p> +She was too weak to resist his wish, and she gave the child up. The doctor +handed him back to his nurse. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better put him back in his own bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, sir.” The little boy, still sleeping, was taken away. +His mother sobbed now broken-heartedly. +</p> + +<p> +“What will happen to him, poor child?” +</p> + +<p> +The monthly nurse tried to quiet her, and presently, from exhaustion, the +crying ceased. The doctor walked to a table on the other side of the room, upon +which, under a towel, lay the body of a still-born child. He lifted the towel +and looked. He was hidden from the bed by a screen, but the woman guessed what +he was doing. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it a girl or a boy?” she whispered to the nurse. +</p> + +<p> +“Another boy.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman did not answer. In a moment the child’s nurse came back. She +approached the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Master Philip never woke up,” she said. There was a pause. Then +the doctor felt his patient’s pulse once more. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think there’s anything I can do just now,” he +said. “I’ll call again after breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll show you out, sir,” said the child’s nurse. +</p> + +<p> +They walked downstairs in silence. In the hall the doctor stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve sent for Mrs. Carey’s brother-in-law, haven’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you know at what time he’ll be here?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, I’m expecting a telegram.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about the little boy? I should think he’d be better out of +the way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Watkin said she’d take him, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s she?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s his godmother, sir. D’you think Mrs. Carey will get +over it, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor shook his head. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>II</h2> + +<p> +It was a week later. Philip was sitting on the floor in the drawing-room at +Miss Watkin’s house in Onslow gardens. He was an only child and used to +amusing himself. The room was filled with massive furniture, and on each of the +sofas were three big cushions. There was a cushion too in each arm-chair. All +these he had taken and, with the help of the gilt rout chairs, light and easy +to move, had made an elaborate cave in which he could hide himself from the Red +Indians who were lurking behind the curtains. He put his ear to the floor and +listened to the herd of buffaloes that raced across the prairie. Presently, +hearing the door open, he held his breath so that he might not be discovered; +but a violent hand pulled away a chair and the cushions fell down. +</p> + +<p> +“You naughty boy, Miss Watkin WILL be cross with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hulloa, Emma!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The nurse bent down and kissed him, then began to shake out the cushions, and +put them back in their places. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I to come home?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve come to fetch you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a new dress on.” +</p> + +<p> +It was in eighteen-eighty-five, and she wore a bustle. Her gown was of black +velvet, with tight sleeves and sloping shoulders, and the skirt had three large +flounces. She wore a black bonnet with velvet strings. She hesitated. The +question she had expected did not come, and so she could not give the answer +she had prepared. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to ask how your mamma is?” she said at +length. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I forgot. How is mamma?” +</p> + +<p> +Now she was ready. +</p> + +<p> +“Your mamma is quite well and happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your mamma’s gone away. You won’t ever see her any +more.” Philip did not know what she meant. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your mamma’s in heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +She began to cry, and Philip, though he did not quite understand, cried too. +Emma was a tall, big-boned woman, with fair hair and large features. She came +from Devonshire and, notwithstanding her many years of service in London, had +never lost the breadth of her accent. Her tears increased her emotion, and she +pressed the little boy to her heart. She felt vaguely the pity of that child +deprived of the only love in the world that is quite unselfish. It seemed +dreadful that he must be handed over to strangers. But in a little while she +pulled herself together. +</p> + +<p> +“Your Uncle William is waiting in to see you,” she said. “Go +and say good-bye to Miss Watkin, and we’ll go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to say good-bye,” he answered, instinctively +anxious to hide his tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, run upstairs and get your hat.” +</p> + +<p> +He fetched it, and when he came down Emma was waiting for him in the hall. He +heard the sound of voices in the study behind the dining-room. He paused. He +knew that Miss Watkin and her sister were talking to friends, and it seemed to +him—he was nine years old—that if he went in they would be sorry +for him. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’ll go and say good-bye to Miss Watkin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’d better,” said Emma. +</p> + +<p> +“Go in and tell them I’m coming,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He wished to make the most of his opportunity. Emma knocked at the door and +walked in. He heard her speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Master Philip wants to say good-bye to you, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a sudden hush of the conversation, and Philip limped in. Henrietta +Watkin was a stout woman, with a red face and dyed hair. In those days to dye +the hair excited comment, and Philip had heard much gossip at home when his +godmother’s changed colour. She lived with an elder sister, who had +resigned herself contentedly to old age. Two ladies, whom Philip did not know, +were calling, and they looked at him curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“My poor child,” said Miss Watkin, opening her arms. +</p> + +<p> +She began to cry. Philip understood now why she had not been in to luncheon and +why she wore a black dress. She could not speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got to go home,” said Philip, at last. +</p> + +<p> +He disengaged himself from Miss Watkin’s arms, and she kissed him again. +Then he went to her sister and bade her good-bye too. One of the strange ladies +asked if she might kiss him, and he gravely gave her permission. Though crying, +he keenly enjoyed the sensation he was causing; he would have been glad to stay +a little longer to be made much of, but felt they expected him to go, so he +said that Emma was waiting for him. He went out of the room. Emma had gone +downstairs to speak with a friend in the basement, and he waited for her on the +landing. He heard Henrietta Watkin’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“His mother was my greatest friend. I can’t bear to think that +she’s dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“You oughtn’t to have gone to the funeral, Henrietta,” said +her sister. “I knew it would upset you.” +</p> + +<p> +Then one of the strangers spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor little boy, it’s dreadful to think of him quite alone in the +world. I see he limps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he’s got a club-foot. It was such a grief to his +mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Emma came back. They called a hansom, and she told the driver where to go. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>III</h2> + +<p> +When they reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in—it was in a dreary, +respectable street between Notting Hill Gate and High Street, +Kensington—Emma led Philip into the drawing-room. His uncle was writing +letters of thanks for the wreaths which had been sent. One of them, which had +arrived too late for the funeral, lay in its cardboard box on the hall-table. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s Master Philip,” said Emma. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey stood up slowly and shook hands with the little boy. Then on second +thoughts he bent down and kissed his forehead. He was a man of somewhat less +than average height, inclined to corpulence, with his hair, worn long, arranged +over the scalp so as to conceal his baldness. He was clean-shaven. His features +were regular, and it was possible to imagine that in his youth he had been +good-looking. On his watch-chain he wore a gold cross. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going to live with me now, Philip,” said Mr. Carey. +“Shall you like that?” +</p> + +<p> +Two years before Philip had been sent down to stay at the vicarage after an +attack of chicken-pox; but there remained with him a recollection of an attic +and a large garden rather than of his uncle and aunt. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must look upon me and your Aunt Louisa as your father and +mother.” +</p> + +<p> +The child’s mouth trembled a little, he reddened, but did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Your dear mother left you in my charge.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey had no great ease in expressing himself. When the news came that his +sister-in-law was dying, he set off at once for London, but on the way thought +of nothing but the disturbance in his life that would be caused if her death +forced him to undertake the care of her son. He was well over fifty, and his +wife, to whom he had been married for thirty years, was childless; he did not +look forward with any pleasure to the presence of a small boy who might be +noisy and rough. He had never much liked his sister-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to take you down to Blackstable tomorrow,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“With Emma?” +</p> + +<p> +The child put his hand in hers, and she pressed it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid Emma must go away,” said Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“But I want Emma to come with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip began to cry, and the nurse could not help crying too. Mr. Carey looked +at them helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’d better leave me alone with Master Philip for a +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Though Philip clung to her, she released herself gently. Mr. Carey took the boy +on his knee and put his arm round him. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t cry,” he said. “You’re too old to +have a nurse now. We must see about sending you to school.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want Emma to come with me,” the child repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“It costs too much money, Philip. Your father didn’t leave very +much, and I don’t know what’s become of it. You must look at every +penny you spend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey had called the day before on the family solicitor. Philip’s +father was a surgeon in good practice, and his hospital appointments suggested +an established position; so that it was a surprise on his sudden death from +blood-poisoning to find that he had left his widow little more than his life +insurance and what could be got for the lease of their house in Bruton Street. +This was six months ago; and Mrs. Carey, already in delicate health, finding +herself with child, had lost her head and accepted for the lease the first +offer that was made. She stored her furniture, and, at a rent which the parson +thought outrageous, took a furnished house for a year, so that she might suffer +from no inconvenience till her child was born. But she had never been used to +the management of money, and was unable to adapt her expenditure to her altered +circumstances. The little she had slipped through her fingers in one way and +another, so that now, when all expenses were paid, not much more than two +thousand pounds remained to support the boy till he was able to earn his own +living. It was impossible to explain all this to Philip and he was sobbing +still. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better go to Emma,” Mr. Carey said, feeling that she +could console the child better than anyone. +</p> + +<p> +Without a word Philip slipped off his uncle’s knee, but Mr. Carey stopped +him. +</p> + +<p> +“We must go tomorrow, because on Saturday I’ve got to prepare my +sermon, and you must tell Emma to get your things ready today. You can bring +all your toys. And if you want anything to remember your father and mother by +you can take one thing for each of them. Everything else is going to be +sold.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was unused to work, and he turned to +his correspondence with resentment. On one side of the desk was a bundle of +bills, and these filled him with irritation. One especially seemed +preposterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey’s death Emma had ordered from +the florist masses of white flowers for the room in which the dead woman lay. +It was sheer waste of money. Emma took far too much upon herself. Even if there +had been no financial necessity, he would have dismissed her. +</p> + +<p> +But Philip went to her, and hid his face in her bosom, and wept as though his +heart would break. And she, feeling that he was almost her own son—she +had taken him when he was a month old—consoled him with soft words. She +promised that she would come and see him sometimes, and that she would never +forget him; and she told him about the country he was going to and about her +own home in Devonshire—her father kept a turnpike on the high-road that +led to Exeter, and there were pigs in the sty, and there was a cow, and the cow +had just had a calf—till Philip forgot his tears and grew excited at the +thought of his approaching journey. Presently she put him down, for there was +much to be done, and he helped her to lay out his clothes on the bed. She sent +him into the nursery to gather up his toys, and in a little while he was +playing happily. +</p> + +<p> +But at last he grew tired of being alone and went back to the bed-room, in +which Emma was now putting his things into a big tin box; he remembered then +that his uncle had said he might take something to remember his father and +mother by. He told Emma and asked her what he should take. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better go into the drawing-room and see what you +fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle William’s there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind that. They’re your own things now.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip went downstairs slowly and found the door open. Mr. Carey had left the +room. Philip walked slowly round. They had been in the house so short a time +that there was little in it that had a particular interest to him. It was a +stranger’s room, and Philip saw nothing that struck his fancy. But he +knew which were his mother’s things and which belonged to the landlord, +and presently fixed on a little clock that he had once heard his mother say she +liked. With this he walked again rather disconsolately upstairs. Outside the +door of his mother’s bed-room he stopped and listened. Though no one had +told him not to go in, he had a feeling that it would be wrong to do so; he was +a little frightened, and his heart beat uncomfortably; but at the same time +something impelled him to turn the handle. He turned it very gently, as if to +prevent anyone within from hearing, and then slowly pushed the door open. He +stood on the threshold for a moment before he had the courage to enter. He was +not frightened now, but it seemed strange. He closed the door behind him. The +blinds were drawn, and the room, in the cold light of a January afternoon, was +dark. On the dressing-table were Mrs. Carey’s brushes and the hand +mirror. In a little tray were hairpins. There was a photograph of himself on +the chimney-piece and one of his father. He had often been in the room when his +mother was not in it, but now it seemed different. There was something curious +in the look of the chairs. The bed was made as though someone were going to +sleep in it that night, and in a case on the pillow was a night-dress. +</p> + +<p> +Philip opened a large cupboard filled with dresses and, stepping in, took as +many of them as he could in his arms and buried his face in them. They smelt of +the scent his mother used. Then he pulled open the drawers, filled with his +mother’s things, and looked at them: there were lavender bags among the +linen, and their scent was fresh and pleasant. The strangeness of the room left +it, and it seemed to him that his mother had just gone out for a walk. She +would be in presently and would come upstairs to have nursery tea with him. And +he seemed to feel her kiss on his lips. +</p> + +<p> +It was not true that he would never see her again. It was not true simply +because it was impossible. He climbed up on the bed and put his head on the +pillow. He lay there quite still. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>IV</h2> + +<p> +Philip parted from Emma with tears, but the journey to Blackstable amused him, +and, when they arrived, he was resigned and cheerful. Blackstable was sixty +miles from London. Giving their luggage to a porter, Mr. Carey set out to walk +with Philip to the vicarage; it took them little more than five minutes, and, +when they reached it, Philip suddenly remembered the gate. It was red and +five-barred: it swung both ways on easy hinges; and it was possible, though +forbidden, to swing backwards and forwards on it. They walked through the +garden to the front-door. This was only used by visitors and on Sundays, and on +special occasions, as when the Vicar went up to London or came back. The +traffic of the house took place through a side-door, and there was a back door +as well for the gardener and for beggars and tramps. It was a fairly large +house of yellow brick, with a red roof, built about five and twenty years +before in an ecclesiastical style. The front-door was like a church porch, and +the drawing-room windows were gothic. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey, knowing by what train they were coming, waited in the drawing-room +and listened for the click of the gate. When she heard it she went to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s Aunt Louisa,” said Mr. Carey, when he saw her. +“Run and give her a kiss.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip started to run, awkwardly, trailing his club-foot, and then stopped. +Mrs. Carey was a little, shrivelled woman of the same age as her husband, with +a face extraordinarily filled with deep wrinkles, and pale blue eyes. Her gray +hair was arranged in ringlets according to the fashion of her youth. She wore a +black dress, and her only ornament was a gold chain, from which hung a cross. +She had a shy manner and a gentle voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you walk, William?” she said, almost reproachfully, as she +kissed her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think of it,” he answered, with a glance at his +nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“It didn’t hurt you to walk, Philip, did it?” she asked the +child. +</p> + +<p> +“No. I always walk.” +</p> + +<p> +He was a little surprised at their conversation. Aunt Louisa told him to come +in, and they entered the hall. It was paved with red and yellow tiles, on which +alternately were a Greek Cross and the Lamb of God. An imposing staircase led +out of the hall. It was of polished pine, with a peculiar smell, and had been +put in because fortunately, when the church was reseated, enough wood remained +over. The balusters were decorated with emblems of the Four Evangelists. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had the stove lighted as I thought you’d be cold after +your journey,” said Mrs. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +It was a large black stove that stood in the hall and was only lighted if the +weather was very bad and the Vicar had a cold. It was not lighted if Mrs. Carey +had a cold. Coal was expensive. Besides, Mary Ann, the maid, didn’t like +fires all over the place. If they wanted all them fires they must keep a second +girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs. Carey lived in the dining-room so that one +fire should do, and in the summer they could not get out of the habit, so the +drawing-room was used only by Mr. Carey on Sunday afternoons for his nap. But +every Saturday he had a fire in the study so that he could write his sermon. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into a tiny bed-room that +looked out on the drive. Immediately in front of the window was a large tree, +which Philip remembered now because the branches were so low that it was +possible to climb quite high up it. +</p> + +<p> +“A small room for a small boy,” said Mrs. Carey. “You +won’t be frightened at sleeping alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no.” +</p> + +<p> +On his first visit to the vicarage he had come with his nurse, and Mrs. Carey +had had little to do with him. She looked at him now with some uncertainty. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you wash your own hands, or shall I wash them for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can wash myself,” he answered firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I shall look at them when you come down to tea,” said Mrs. +Carey. +</p> + +<p> +She knew nothing about children. After it was settled that Philip should come +down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she should treat him; she +was anxious to do her duty; but now he was there she found herself just as shy +of him as he was of her. She hoped he would not be noisy and rough, because her +husband did not like rough and noisy boys. Mrs. Carey made an excuse to leave +Philip alone, but in a moment came back and knocked at the door; she asked him, +without coming in, if he could pour out the water himself. Then she went +downstairs and rang the bell for tea. +</p> + +<p> +The dining-room, large and well-proportioned, had windows on two sides of it, +with heavy curtains of red rep; there was a big table in the middle; and at one +end an imposing mahogany sideboard with a looking-glass in it. In one corner +stood a harmonium. On each side of the fireplace were chairs covered in stamped +leather, each with an antimacassar; one had arms and was called the husband, +and the other had none and was called the wife. Mrs. Carey never sat in the +arm-chair: she said she preferred a chair that was not too comfortable; there +was always a lot to do, and if her chair had had arms she might not be so ready +to leave it. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey was making up the fire when Philip came in, and he pointed out to his +nephew that there were two pokers. One was large and bright and polished and +unused, and was called the Vicar; and the other, which was much smaller and had +evidently passed through many fires, was called the Curate. +</p> + +<p> +“What are we waiting for?” said Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“I told Mary Ann to make you an egg. I thought you’d be hungry +after your journey.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Blackstable very tiring. She +seldom travelled herself, for the living was only three hundred a year, and, +when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money for two, he went +by himself. He was very fond of Church Congresses and usually managed to go up +to London once a year; and once he had been to Paris for the exhibition, and +two or three times to Switzerland. Mary Ann brought in the egg, and they sat +down. The chair was much too low for Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey +nor his wife knew what to do. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll put some books under him,” said Mary Ann. +</p> + +<p> +She took from the top of the harmonium the large Bible and the prayer-book from +which the Vicar was accustomed to read prayers, and put them on Philip’s +chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, William, he can’t sit on the Bible,” said Mrs. Carey, in +a shocked tone. “Couldn’t you get him some books out of the +study?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey considered the question for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it matters this once if you put the prayer-book on +the top, Mary Ann,” he said. “The book of Common Prayer is the +composition of men like ourselves. It has no claim to divine authorship.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hadn’t thought of that, William,” said Aunt Louisa. +</p> + +<p> +Philip perched himself on the books, and the Vicar, having said grace, cut the +top off his egg. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” he said, handing it to Philip, “you can eat my top +if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip would have liked an egg to himself, but he was not offered one, so took +what he could. +</p> + +<p> +“How have the chickens been laying since I went away?” asked the +Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they’ve been dreadful, only one or two a day.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you like that top, Philip?” asked his uncle. +</p> + +<p> +“Very much, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have another one on Sunday afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey always had a boiled egg at tea on Sunday, so that he might be +fortified for the evening service. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>V</h2> + +<p> +Philip came gradually to know the people he was to live with, and by fragments +of conversation, some of it not meant for his ears, learned a good deal both +about himself and about his dead parents. Philip’s father had been much +younger than the Vicar of Blackstable. After a brilliant career at St. +Luke’s Hospital he was put on the staff, and presently began to earn +money in considerable sums. He spent it freely. When the parson set about +restoring his church and asked his brother for a subscription, he was surprised +by receiving a couple of hundred pounds: Mr. Carey, thrifty by inclination and +economical by necessity, accepted it with mingled feelings; he was envious of +his brother because he could afford to give so much, pleased for the sake of +his church, and vaguely irritated by a generosity which seemed almost +ostentatious. Then Henry Carey married a patient, a beautiful girl but +penniless, an orphan with no near relations, but of good family; and there was +an array of fine friends at the wedding. The parson, on his visits to her when +he came to London, held himself with reserve. He felt shy with her and in his +heart he resented her great beauty: she dressed more magnificently than became +the wife of a hardworking surgeon; and the charming furniture of her house, the +flowers among which she lived even in winter, suggested an extravagance which +he deplored. He heard her talk of entertainments she was going to; and, as he +told his wife on getting home again, it was impossible to accept hospitality +without making some return. He had seen grapes in the dining-room that must +have cost at least eight shillings a pound; and at luncheon he had been given +asparagus two months before it was ready in the vicarage garden. Now all he had +anticipated was come to pass: the Vicar felt the satisfaction of the prophet +who saw fire and brimstone consume the city which would not mend its way to his +warning. Poor Philip was practically penniless, and what was the good of his +mother’s fine friends now? He heard that his father’s extravagance +was really criminal, and it was a mercy that Providence had seen fit to take +his dear mother to itself: she had no more idea of money than a child. +</p> + +<p> +When Philip had been a week at Blackstable an incident happened which seemed to +irritate his uncle very much. One morning he found on the breakfast table a +small packet which had been sent on by post from the late Mrs. Carey’s +house in London. It was addressed to her. When the parson opened it he found a +dozen photographs of Mrs. Carey. They showed the head and shoulders only, and +her hair was more plainly done than usual, low on the forehead, which gave her +an unusual look; the face was thin and worn, but no illness could impair the +beauty of her features. There was in the large dark eyes a sadness which Philip +did not remember. The first sight of the dead woman gave Mr. Carey a little +shock, but this was quickly followed by perplexity. The photographs seemed +quite recent, and he could not imagine who had ordered them. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you know anything about these, Philip?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember mamma said she’d been taken,” he answered. +“Miss Watkin scolded her…. She said: I wanted the boy to have something +to remember me by when he grows up.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey looked at Philip for an instant. The child spoke in a clear treble. +He recalled the words, but they meant nothing to him. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better take one of the photographs and keep it in your +room,” said Mr. Carey. “I’ll put the others away.” +</p> + +<p> +He sent one to Miss Watkin, and she wrote and explained how they came to be +taken. +</p> + +<p> +One day Mrs. Carey was lying in bed, but she was feeling a little better than +usual, and the doctor in the morning had seemed hopeful; Emma had taken the +child out, and the maids were downstairs in the basement: suddenly Mrs. Carey +felt desperately alone in the world. A great fear seized her that she would not +recover from the confinement which she was expecting in a fortnight. Her son +was nine years old. How could he be expected to remember her? She could not +bear to think that he would grow up and forget, forget her utterly; and she had +loved him so passionately, because he was weakly and deformed, and because he +was her child. She had no photographs of herself taken since her marriage, and +that was ten years before. She wanted her son to know what she looked like at +the end. He could not forget her then, not forget utterly. She knew that if she +called her maid and told her she wanted to get up, the maid would prevent her, +and perhaps send for the doctor, and she had not the strength now to struggle +or argue. She got out of bed and began to dress herself. She had been on her +back so long that her legs gave way beneath her, and then the soles of her feet +tingled so that she could hardly bear to put them to the ground. But she went +on. She was unused to doing her own hair and, when she raised her arms and +began to brush it, she felt faint. She could never do it as her maid did. It +was beautiful hair, very fine, and of a deep rich gold. Her eyebrows were +straight and dark. She put on a black skirt, but chose the bodice of the +evening dress which she liked best: it was of a white damask which was +fashionable in those days. She looked at herself in the glass. Her face was +very pale, but her skin was clear: she had never had much colour, and this had +always made the redness of her beautiful mouth emphatic. She could not restrain +a sob. But she could not afford to be sorry for herself; she was feeling +already desperately tired; and she put on the furs which Henry had given her +the Christmas before—she had been so proud of them and so happy +then—and slipped downstairs with beating heart. She got safely out of the +house and drove to a photographer. She paid for a dozen photographs. She was +obliged to ask for a glass of water in the middle of the sitting; and the +assistant, seeing she was ill, suggested that she should come another day, but +she insisted on staying till the end. At last it was finished, and she drove +back again to the dingy little house in Kensington which she hated with all her +heart. It was a horrible house to die in. +</p> + +<p> +She found the front door open, and when she drove up the maid and Emma ran down +the steps to help her. They had been frightened when they found her room empty. +At first they thought she must have gone to Miss Watkin, and the cook was sent +round. Miss Watkin came back with her and was waiting anxiously in the +drawing-room. She came downstairs now full of anxiety and reproaches; but the +exertion had been more than Mrs. Carey was fit for, and when the occasion for +firmness no longer existed she gave way. She fell heavily into Emma’s +arms and was carried upstairs. She remained unconscious for a time that seemed +incredibly long to those that watched her, and the doctor, hurriedly sent for, +did not come. It was next day, when she was a little better, that Miss Watkin +got some explanation out of her. Philip was playing on the floor of his +mother’s bed-room, and neither of the ladies paid attention to him. He +only understood vaguely what they were talking about, and he could not have +said why those words remained in his memory. +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted the boy to have something to remember me by when he grows +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t make out why she ordered a dozen,” said Mr. Carey. +“Two would have done.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>VI</h2> + +<p> +One day was very like another at the vicarage. +</p> + +<p> +Soon after breakfast Mary Ann brought in The Times. Mr. Carey shared it with +two neighbours. He had it from ten till one, when the gardener took it over to +Mr. Ellis at the Limes, with whom it remained till seven; then it was taken to +Miss Brooks at the Manor House, who, since she got it late, had the advantage +of keeping it. In summer Mrs. Carey, when she was making jam, often asked her +for a copy to cover the pots with. When the Vicar settled down to his paper his +wife put on her bonnet and went out to do the shopping. Philip accompanied her. +Blackstable was a fishing village. It consisted of a high street in which were +the shops, the bank, the doctor’s house, and the houses of two or three +coalship owners; round the little harbor were shabby streets in which lived +fishermen and poor people; but since they went to chapel they were of no +account. When Mrs. Carey passed the dissenting ministers in the street she +stepped over to the other side to avoid meeting them, but if there was not time +for this fixed her eyes on the pavement. It was a scandal to which the Vicar +had never resigned himself that there were three chapels in the High Street: he +could not help feeling that the law should have stepped in to prevent their +erection. Shopping in Blackstable was not a simple matter; for dissent, helped +by the fact that the parish church was two miles from the town, was very +common; and it was necessary to deal only with churchgoers; Mrs. Carey knew +perfectly that the vicarage custom might make all the difference to a +tradesman’s faith. There were two butchers who went to church, and they +would not understand that the Vicar could not deal with both of them at once; +nor were they satisfied with his simple plan of going for six months to one and +for six months to the other. The butcher who was not sending meat to the +vicarage constantly threatened not to come to church, and the Vicar was +sometimes obliged to make a threat: it was very wrong of him not to come to +church, but if he carried iniquity further and actually went to chapel, then of +course, excellent as his meat was, Mr. Carey would be forced to leave him for +ever. Mrs. Carey often stopped at the bank to deliver a message to Josiah +Graves, the manager, who was choir-master, treasurer, and churchwarden. He was +a tall, thin man with a sallow face and a long nose; his hair was very white, +and to Philip he seemed extremely old. He kept the parish accounts, arranged +the treats for the choir and the schools; though there was no organ in the +parish church, it was generally considered (in Blackstable) that the choir he +led was the best in Kent; and when there was any ceremony, such as a visit from +the Bishop for confirmation or from the Rural Dean to preach at the Harvest +Thanksgiving, he made the necessary preparations. But he had no hesitation in +doing all manner of things without more than a perfunctory consultation with +the Vicar, and the Vicar, though always ready to be saved trouble, much +resented the churchwarden’s managing ways. He really seemed to look upon +himself as the most important person in the parish. Mr. Carey constantly told +his wife that if Josiah Graves did not take care he would give him a good rap +over the knuckles one day; but Mrs. Carey advised him to bear with Josiah +Graves: he meant well, and it was not his fault if he was not quite a +gentleman. The Vicar, finding his comfort in the practice of a Christian +virtue, exercised forbearance; but he revenged himself by calling the +churchwarden Bismarck behind his back. +</p> + +<p> +Once there had been a serious quarrel between the pair, and Mrs. Carey still +thought of that anxious time with dismay. The Conservative candidate had +announced his intention of addressing a meeting at Blackstable; and Josiah +Graves, having arranged that it should take place in the Mission Hall, went to +Mr. Carey and told him that he hoped he would say a few words. It appeared that +the candidate had asked Josiah Graves to take the chair. This was more than Mr. +Carey could put up with. He had firm views upon the respect which was due to +the cloth, and it was ridiculous for a churchwarden to take the chair at a +meeting when the Vicar was there. He reminded Josiah Graves that parson meant +person, that is, the vicar was the person of the parish. Josiah Graves answered +that he was the first to recognise the dignity of the church, but this was a +matter of politics, and in his turn he reminded the Vicar that their Blessed +Saviour had enjoined upon them to render unto Caesar the things that were +Caesar’s. To this Mr. Carey replied that the devil could quote scripture +to his purpose, himself had sole authority over the Mission Hall, and if he +were not asked to be chairman he would refuse the use of it for a political +meeting. Josiah Graves told Mr. Carey that he might do as he chose, and for his +part he thought the Wesleyan Chapel would be an equally suitable place. Then +Mr. Carey said that if Josiah Graves set foot in what was little better than a +heathen temple he was not fit to be churchwarden in a Christian parish. Josiah +Graves thereupon resigned all his offices, and that very evening sent to the +church for his cassock and surplice. His sister, Miss Graves, who kept house +for him, gave up her secretaryship of the Maternity Club, which provided the +pregnant poor with flannel, baby linen, coals, and five shillings. Mr. Carey +said he was at last master in his own house. But soon he found that he was +obliged to see to all sorts of things that he knew nothing about; and Josiah +Graves, after the first moment of irritation, discovered that he had lost his +chief interest in life. Mrs. Carey and Miss Graves were much distressed by the +quarrel; they met after a discreet exchange of letters, and made up their minds +to put the matter right: they talked, one to her husband, the other to her +brother, from morning till night; and since they were persuading these +gentlemen to do what in their hearts they wanted, after three weeks of anxiety +a reconciliation was effected. It was to both their interests, but they +ascribed it to a common love for their Redeemer. The meeting was held at the +Mission Hall, and the doctor was asked to be chairman. Mr. Carey and Josiah +Graves both made speeches. +</p> + +<p> +When Mrs. Carey had finished her business with the banker, she generally went +upstairs to have a little chat with his sister; and while the ladies talked of +parish matters, the curate or the new bonnet of Mrs. Wilson—Mr. Wilson +was the richest man in Blackstable, he was thought to have at least five +hundred a year, and he had married his cook—Philip sat demurely in the +stiff parlour, used only to receive visitors, and busied himself with the +restless movements of goldfish in a bowl. The windows were never opened except +to air the room for a few minutes in the morning, and it had a stuffy smell +which seemed to Philip to have a mysterious connection with banking. +</p> + +<p> +Then Mrs. Carey remembered that she had to go to the grocer, and they continued +their way. When the shopping was done they often went down a side street of +little houses, mostly of wood, in which fishermen dwelt (and here and there a +fisherman sat on his doorstep mending his nets, and nets hung to dry upon the +doors), till they came to a small beach, shut in on each side by warehouses, +but with a view of the sea. Mrs. Carey stood for a few minutes and looked at +it, it was turbid and yellow, [and who knows what thoughts passed through her +mind?] while Philip searched for flat stones to play ducks and drakes. Then +they walked slowly back. They looked into the post office to get the right +time, nodded to Mrs. Wigram the doctor’s wife, who sat at her window +sewing, and so got home. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner was at one o’clock; and on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday it +consisted of beef, roast, hashed, and minced, and on Thursday, Friday, and +Saturday of mutton. On Sunday they ate one of their own chickens. In the +afternoon Philip did his lessons, He was taught Latin and mathematics by his +uncle who knew neither, and French and the piano by his aunt. Of French she was +ignorant, but she knew the piano well enough to accompany the old-fashioned +songs she had sung for thirty years. Uncle William used to tell Philip that +when he was a curate his wife had known twelve songs by heart, which she could +sing at a moment’s notice whenever she was asked. She often sang still +when there was a tea-party at the vicarage. There were few people whom the +Careys cared to ask there, and their parties consisted always of the curate, +Josiah Graves with his sister, Dr. Wigram and his wife. After tea Miss Graves +played one or two of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, and Mrs. Carey +sang When the Swallows Homeward Fly, or Trot, Trot, My Pony. +</p> + +<p> +But the Careys did not give tea-parties often; the preparations upset them, and +when their guests were gone they felt themselves exhausted. They preferred to +have tea by themselves, and after tea they played backgammon. Mrs. Carey +arranged that her husband should win, because he did not like losing. They had +cold supper at eight. It was a scrappy meal because Mary Ann resented getting +anything ready after tea, and Mrs. Carey helped to clear away. Mrs. Carey +seldom ate more than bread and butter, with a little stewed fruit to follow, +but the Vicar had a slice of cold meat. Immediately after supper Mrs. Carey +rang the bell for prayers, and then Philip went to bed. He rebelled against +being undressed by Mary Ann and after a while succeeded in establishing his +right to dress and undress himself. At nine o’clock Mary Ann brought in +the eggs and the plate. Mrs. Carey wrote the date on each egg and put the +number down in a book. She then took the plate-basket on her arm and went +upstairs. Mr. Carey continued to read one of his old books, but as the clock +struck ten he got up, put out the lamps, and followed his wife to bed. +</p> + +<p> +When Philip arrived there was some difficulty in deciding on which evening he +should have his bath. It was never easy to get plenty of hot water, since the +kitchen boiler did not work, and it was impossible for two persons to have a +bath on the same day. The only man who had a bathroom in Blackstable was Mr. +Wilson, and it was thought ostentatious of him. Mary Ann had her bath in the +kitchen on Monday night, because she liked to begin the week clean. Uncle +William could not have his on Saturday, because he had a heavy day before him +and he was always a little tired after a bath, so he had it on Friday. Mrs. +Carey had hers on Thursday for the same reason. It looked as though Saturday +were naturally indicated for Philip, but Mary Ann said she couldn’t keep +the fire up on Saturday night: what with all the cooking on Sunday, having to +make pastry and she didn’t know what all, she did not feel up to giving +the boy his bath on Saturday night; and it was quite clear that he could not +bath himself. Mrs. Carey was shy about bathing a boy, and of course the Vicar +had his sermon. But the Vicar insisted that Philip should be clean and sweet +for the lord’s Day. Mary Ann said she would rather go than be put +upon—and after eighteen years she didn’t expect to have more work +given her, and they might show some consideration—and Philip said he +didn’t want anyone to bath him, but could very well bath himself. This +settled it. Mary Ann said she was quite sure he wouldn’t bath himself +properly, and rather than he should go dirty—and not because he was going +into the presence of the Lord, but because she couldn’t abide a boy who +wasn’t properly washed—she’d work herself to the bone even if +it was Saturday night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>VII</h2> + +<p> +Sunday was a day crowded with incident. Mr. Carey was accustomed to say that he +was the only man in his parish who worked seven days a week. +</p> + +<p> +The household got up half an hour earlier than usual. No lying abed for a poor +parson on the day of rest, Mr. Carey remarked as Mary Ann knocked at the door +punctually at eight. It took Mrs. Carey longer to dress, and she got down to +breakfast at nine, a little breathless, only just before her husband. Mr. +Carey’s boots stood in front of the fire to warm. Prayers were longer +than usual, and the breakfast more substantial. After breakfast the Vicar cut +thin slices of bread for the communion, and Philip was privileged to cut off +the crust. He was sent to the study to fetch a marble paperweight, with which +Mr. Carey pressed the bread till it was thin and pulpy, and then it was cut +into small squares. The amount was regulated by the weather. On a very bad day +few people came to church, and on a very fine one, though many came, few stayed +for communion. There were most when it was dry enough to make the walk to +church pleasant, but not so fine that people wanted to hurry away. +</p> + +<p> +Then Mrs. Carey brought the communion plate out of the safe, which stood in the +pantry, and the Vicar polished it with a chamois leather. At ten the fly drove +up, and Mr. Carey got into his boots. Mrs. Carey took several minutes to put on +her bonnet, during which the Vicar, in a voluminous cloak, stood in the hall +with just such an expression on his face as would have become an early +Christian about to be led into the arena. It was extraordinary that after +thirty years of marriage his wife could not be ready in time on Sunday morning. +At last she came, in black satin; the Vicar did not like colours in a +clergyman’s wife at any time, but on Sundays he was determined that she +should wear black; now and then, in conspiracy with Miss Graves, she ventured a +white feather or a pink rose in her bonnet, but the Vicar insisted that it +should disappear; he said he would not go to church with the scarlet woman: +Mrs. Carey sighed as a woman but obeyed as a wife. They were about to step into +the carriage when the Vicar remembered that no one had given him his egg. They +knew that he must have an egg for his voice, there were two women in the house, +and no one had the least regard for his comfort. Mrs. Carey scolded Mary Ann, +and Mary Ann answered that she could not think of everything. She hurried away +to fetch an egg, and Mrs. Carey beat it up in a glass of sherry. The Vicar +swallowed it at a gulp. The communion plate was stowed in the carriage, and +they set off. +</p> + +<p> +The fly came from The Red Lion and had a peculiar smell of stale straw. They +drove with both windows closed so that the Vicar should not catch cold. The +sexton was waiting at the porch to take the communion plate, and while the +Vicar went to the vestry Mrs. Carey and Philip settled themselves in the +vicarage pew. Mrs. Carey placed in front of her the sixpenny bit she was +accustomed to put in the plate, and gave Philip threepence for the same +purpose. The church filled up gradually and the service began. +</p> + +<p> +Philip grew bored during the sermon, but if he fidgetted Mrs. Carey put a +gentle hand on his arm and looked at him reproachfully. He regained interest +when the final hymn was sung and Mr. Graves passed round with the plate. +</p> + +<p> +When everyone had gone Mrs. Carey went into Miss Graves’ pew to have a +few words with her while they were waiting for the gentlemen, and Philip went +to the vestry. His uncle, the curate, and Mr. Graves were still in their +surplices. Mr. Carey gave him the remains of the consecrated bread and told him +he might eat it. He had been accustomed to eat it himself, as it seemed +blasphemous to throw it away, but Philip’s keen appetite relieved him +from the duty. Then they counted the money. It consisted of pennies, sixpences +and threepenny bits. There were always two single shillings, one put in the +plate by the Vicar and the other by Mr. Graves; and sometimes there was a +florin. Mr. Graves told the Vicar who had given this. It was always a stranger +to Blackstable, and Mr. Carey wondered who he was. But Miss Graves had observed +the rash act and was able to tell Mrs. Carey that the stranger came from +London, was married and had children. During the drive home Mrs. Carey passed +the information on, and the Vicar made up his mind to call on him and ask for a +subscription to the Additional Curates Society. Mr. Carey asked if Philip had +behaved properly; and Mrs. Carey remarked that Mrs. Wigram had a new mantle, +Mr. Cox was not in church, and somebody thought that Miss Phillips was engaged. +When they reached the vicarage they all felt that they deserved a substantial +dinner. +</p> + +<p> +When this was over Mrs. Carey went to her room to rest, and Mr. Carey lay down +on the sofa in the drawing-room for forty winks. +</p> + +<p> +They had tea at five, and the Vicar ate an egg to support himself for evensong. +Mrs. Carey did not go to this so that Mary Ann might, but she read the service +through and the hymns. Mr. Carey walked to church in the evening, and Philip +limped along by his side. The walk through the darkness along the country road +strangely impressed him, and the church with all its lights in the distance, +coming gradually nearer, seemed very friendly. At first he was shy with his +uncle, but little by little grew used to him, and he would slip his hand in his +uncle’s and walk more easily for the feeling of protection. +</p> + +<p> +They had supper when they got home. Mr. Carey’s slippers were waiting for +him on a footstool in front of the fire and by their side Philip’s, one +the shoe of a small boy, the other misshapen and odd. He was dreadfully tired +when he went up to bed, and he did not resist when Mary Ann undressed him. She +kissed him after she tucked him up, and he began to love her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<p> +Philip had led always the solitary life of an only child, and his loneliness at +the vicarage was no greater than it had been when his mother lived. He made +friends with Mary Ann. She was a chubby little person of thirty-five, the +daughter of a fisherman, and had come to the vicarage at eighteen; it was her +first place and she had no intention of leaving it; but she held a possible +marriage as a rod over the timid heads of her master and mistress. Her father +and mother lived in a little house off Harbour Street, and she went to see them +on her evenings out. Her stories of the sea touched Philip’s imagination, +and the narrow alleys round the harbour grew rich with the romance which his +young fancy lent them. One evening he asked whether he might go home with her; +but his aunt was afraid that he might catch something, and his uncle said that +evil communications corrupted good manners. He disliked the fisher folk, who +were rough, uncouth, and went to chapel. But Philip was more comfortable in the +kitchen than in the dining-room, and, whenever he could, he took his toys and +played there. His aunt was not sorry. She did not like disorder, and though she +recognised that boys must be expected to be untidy she preferred that he should +make a mess in the kitchen. If he fidgeted his uncle was apt to grow restless +and say it was high time he went to school. Mrs. Carey thought Philip very +young for this, and her heart went out to the motherless child; but her +attempts to gain his affection were awkward, and the boy, feeling shy, received +her demonstrations with so much sullenness that she was mortified. Sometimes +she heard his shrill voice raised in laughter in the kitchen, but when she went +in, he grew suddenly silent, and he flushed darkly when Mary Ann explained the +joke. Mrs. Carey could not see anything amusing in what she heard, and she +smiled with constraint. +</p> + +<p> +“He seems happier with Mary Ann than with us, William,” she said, +when she returned to her sewing. +</p> + +<p> +“One can see he’s been very badly brought up. He wants licking into +shape.” +</p> + +<p> +On the second Sunday after Philip arrived an unlucky incident occurred. Mr. +Carey had retired as usual after dinner for a little snooze in the +drawing-room, but he was in an irritable mood and could not sleep. Josiah +Graves that morning had objected strongly to some candlesticks with which the +Vicar had adorned the altar. He had bought them second-hand in Tercanbury, and +he thought they looked very well. But Josiah Graves said they were popish. This +was a taunt that always aroused the Vicar. He had been at Oxford during the +movement which ended in the secession from the Established Church of Edward +Manning, and he felt a certain sympathy for the Church of Rome. He would +willingly have made the service more ornate than had been usual in the +low-church parish of Blackstable, and in his secret soul he yearned for +processions and lighted candles. He drew the line at incense. He hated the word +protestant. He called himself a Catholic. He was accustomed to say that Papists +required an epithet, they were Roman Catholic; but the Church of England was +Catholic in the best, the fullest, and the noblest sense of the term. He was +pleased to think that his shaven face gave him the look of a priest, and in his +youth he had possessed an ascetic air which added to the impression. He often +related that on one of his holidays in Boulogne, one of those holidays upon +which his wife for economy’s sake did not accompany him, when he was +sitting in a church, the cure had come up to him and invited him to preach a +sermon. He dismissed his curates when they married, having decided views on the +celibacy of the unbeneficed clergy. But when at an election the Liberals had +written on his garden fence in large blue letters: This way to Rome, he had +been very angry, and threatened to prosecute the leaders of the Liberal party +in Blackstable. He made up his mind now that nothing Josiah Graves said would +induce him to remove the candlesticks from the altar, and he muttered Bismarck +to himself once or twice irritably. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he heard an unexpected noise. He pulled the handkerchief off his face, +got up from the sofa on which he was lying, and went into the dining-room. +Philip was seated on the table with all his bricks around him. He had built a +monstrous castle, and some defect in the foundation had just brought the +structure down in noisy ruin. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing with those bricks, Philip? You know you’re not +allowed to play games on Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip stared at him for a moment with frightened eyes, and, as his habit was, +flushed deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“I always used to play at home,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure your dear mamma never allowed you to do such a wicked +thing as that.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not know it was wicked; but if it was, he did not wish it to be +supposed that his mother had consented to it. He hung his head and did not +answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know it’s very, very wicked to play on Sunday? +What d’you suppose it’s called the day of rest for? You’re +going to church tonight, and how can you face your Maker when you’ve been +breaking one of His laws in the afternoon?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey told him to put the bricks away at once, and stood over him while +Philip did so. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a very naughty boy,” he repeated. “Think of the +grief you’re causing your poor mother in heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt inclined to cry, but he had an instinctive disinclination to +letting other people see his tears, and he clenched his teeth to prevent the +sobs from escaping. Mr. Carey sat down in his arm-chair and began to turn over +the pages of a book. Philip stood at the window. The vicarage was set back from +the highroad to Tercanbury, and from the dining-room one saw a semicircular +strip of lawn and then as far as the horizon green fields. Sheep were grazing +in them. The sky was forlorn and gray. Philip felt infinitely unhappy. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Mary Ann came in to lay the tea, and Aunt Louisa descended the +stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you had a nice little nap, William?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered. “Philip made so much noise that I +couldn’t sleep a wink.” +</p> + +<p> +This was not quite accurate, for he had been kept awake by his own thoughts; +and Philip, listening sullenly, reflected that he had only made a noise once, +and there was no reason why his uncle should not have slept before or after. +When Mrs. Carey asked for an explanation the Vicar narrated the facts. +</p> + +<p> +“He hasn’t even said he was sorry,” he finished. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip, I’m sure you’re sorry,” said Mrs. Carey, +anxious that the child should not seem wickeder to his uncle than need be. +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not reply. He went on munching his bread and butter. He did not know +what power it was in him that prevented him from making any expression of +regret. He felt his ears tingling, he was a little inclined to cry, but no word +would issue from his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t make it worse by sulking,” said Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +Tea was finished in silence. Mrs. Carey looked at Philip surreptitiously now +and then, but the Vicar elaborately ignored him. When Philip saw his uncle go +upstairs to get ready for church he went into the hall and got his hat and +coat, but when the Vicar came downstairs and saw him, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish you to go to church tonight, Philip. I don’t +think you’re in a proper frame of mind to enter the House of God.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not say a word. He felt it was a deep humiliation that was placed +upon him, and his cheeks reddened. He stood silently watching his uncle put on +his broad hat and his voluminous cloak. Mrs. Carey as usual went to the door to +see him off. Then she turned to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Philip, you won’t be a naughty boy next Sunday, will +you, and then your uncle will take you to church with him in the +evening.” +</p> + +<p> +She took off his hat and coat, and led him into the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall you and I read the service together, Philip, and we’ll sing +the hymns at the harmonium. Would you like that?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shook his head decidedly. Mrs. Carey was taken aback. If he would not +read the evening service with her she did not know what to do with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Then what would you like to do until your uncle comes back?” she +asked helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +Philip broke his silence at last. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to be left alone,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, how can you say anything so unkind? Don’t you know that +your uncle and I only want your good? Don’t you love me at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hate you. I wish you was dead.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey gasped. He said the words so savagely that it gave her quite a +start. She had nothing to say. She sat down in her husband’s chair; and +as she thought of her desire to love the friendless, crippled boy and her eager +wish that he should love her—she was a barren woman and, even though it +was clearly God’s will that she should be childless, she could scarcely +bear to look at little children sometimes, her heart ached so—the tears +rose to her eyes and one by one, slowly, rolled down her cheeks. Philip watched +her in amazement. She took out her handkerchief, and now she cried without +restraint. Suddenly Philip realised that she was crying because of what he had +said, and he was sorry. He went up to her silently and kissed her. It was the +first kiss he had ever given her without being asked. And the poor lady, so +small in her black satin, shrivelled up and sallow, with her funny corkscrew +curls, took the little boy on her lap and put her arms around him and wept as +though her heart would break. But her tears were partly tears of happiness, for +she felt that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a +new love because he had made her suffer. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>IX</h2> + +<p> +On the following Sunday, when the Vicar was making his preparations to go into +the drawing-room for his nap—all the actions of his life were conducted +with ceremony—and Mrs. Carey was about to go upstairs, Philip asked: +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I do if I’m not allowed to play?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you sit still for once and be quiet?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t sit still till tea-time.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey looked out of the window, but it was cold and raw, and he could not +suggest that Philip should go into the garden. +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you can do. You can learn by heart the collect for the +day.” +</p> + +<p> +He took the prayer-book which was used for prayers from the harmonium, and +turned the pages till he came to the place he wanted. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not a long one. If you can say it without a mistake when I +come in to tea you shall have the top of my egg.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey drew up Philip’s chair to the dining-room table—they had +bought him a high chair by now—and placed the book in front of him. +</p> + +<p> +“The devil finds work for idle hands to do,” said Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +He put some more coals on the fire so that there should be a cheerful blaze +when he came in to tea, and went into the drawing-room. He loosened his collar, +arranged the cushions, and settled himself comfortably on the sofa. But +thinking the drawing-room a little chilly, Mrs. Carey brought him a rug from +the hall; she put it over his legs and tucked it round his feet. She drew the +blinds so that the light should not offend his eyes, and since he had closed +them already went out of the room on tiptoe. The Vicar was at peace with +himself today, and in ten minutes he was asleep. He snored softly. +</p> + +<p> +It was the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and the collect began with the words: O +God, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the +devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of Eternal life. Philip read it +through. He could make no sense of it. He began saying the words aloud to +himself, but many of them were unknown to him, and the construction of the +sentence was strange. He could not get more than two lines in his head. And his +attention was constantly wandering: there were fruit trees trained on the walls +of the vicarage, and a long twig beat now and then against the windowpane; +sheep grazed stolidly in the field beyond the garden. It seemed as though there +were knots inside his brain. Then panic seized him that he would not know the +words by tea-time, and he kept on whispering them to himself quickly; he did +not try to understand, but merely to get them parrot-like into his memory. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey could not sleep that afternoon, and by four o’clock she was so +wide awake that she came downstairs. She thought she would hear Philip his +collect so that he should make no mistakes when he said it to his uncle. His +uncle then would be pleased; he would see that the boy’s heart was in the +right place. But when Mrs. Carey came to the dining-room and was about to go +in, she heard a sound that made her stop suddenly. Her heart gave a little +jump. She turned away and quietly slipped out of the front-door. She walked +round the house till she came to the dining-room window and then cautiously +looked in. Philip was still sitting on the chair she had put him in, but his +head was on the table buried in his arms, and he was sobbing desperately. She +saw the convulsive movement of his shoulders. Mrs. Carey was frightened. A +thing that had always struck her about the child was that he seemed so +collected. She had never seen him cry. And now she realised that his calmness +was some instinctive shame of showing his feelings: he hid himself to weep. +</p> + +<p> +Without thinking that her husband disliked being wakened suddenly, she burst +into the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +“William, William,” she said. “The boy’s crying as +though his heart would break.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey sat up and disentangled himself from the rug about his legs. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s he got to cry about?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know…. Oh, William, we can’t let the boy be unhappy. +D’you think it’s our fault? If we’d had children we’d +have known what to do.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey looked at her in perplexity. He felt extraordinarily helpless. +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t be crying because I gave him the collect to learn. +It’s not more than ten lines.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think I might take him some picture books to look at, +William? There are some of the Holy Land. There couldn’t be anything +wrong in that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, I don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey went into the study. To collect books was Mr. Carey’s only +passion, and he never went into Tercanbury without spending an hour or two in +the second-hand shop; he always brought back four or five musty volumes. He +never read them, for he had long lost the habit of reading, but he liked to +turn the pages, look at the illustrations if they were illustrated, and mend +the bindings. He welcomed wet days because on them he could stay at home +without pangs of conscience and spend the afternoon with white of egg and a +glue-pot, patching up the Russia leather of some battered quarto. He had many +volumes of old travels, with steel engravings, and Mrs. Carey quickly found two +which described Palestine. She coughed elaborately at the door so that Philip +should have time to compose himself, she felt that he would be humiliated if +she came upon him in the midst of his tears, then she rattled the door handle. +When she went in Philip was poring over the prayer-book, hiding his eyes with +his hands so that she might not see he had been crying. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know the collect yet?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer for a moment, and she felt that he did not trust his voice. +She was oddly embarrassed. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t learn it by heart,” he said at last, with a gasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, never mind,” she said. “You needn’t. +I’ve got some picture books for you to look at. Come and sit on my lap, +and we’ll look at them together.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip slipped off his chair and limped over to her. He looked down so that she +should not see his eyes. She put her arms round him. +</p> + +<p> +“Look,” she said, “that’s the place where our blessed +Lord was born.” +</p> + +<p> +She showed him an Eastern town with flat roofs and cupolas and minarets. In the +foreground was a group of palm-trees, and under them were resting two Arabs and +some camels. Philip passed his hand over the picture as if he wanted to feel +the houses and the loose habiliments of the nomads. +</p> + +<p> +“Read what it says,” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey in her even voice read the opposite page. It was a romantic +narrative of some Eastern traveller of the thirties, pompous maybe, but +fragrant with the emotion with which the East came to the generation that +followed Byron and Chateaubriand. In a moment or two Philip interrupted her. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to see another picture.” +</p> + +<p> +When Mary Ann came in and Mrs. Carey rose to help her lay the cloth. Philip +took the book in his hands and hurried through the illustrations. It was with +difficulty that his aunt induced him to put the book down for tea. He had +forgotten his horrible struggle to get the collect by heart; he had forgotten +his tears. Next day it was raining, and he asked for the book again. Mrs. Carey +gave it him joyfully. Talking over his future with her husband she had found +that both desired him to take orders, and this eagerness for the book which +described places hallowed by the presence of Jesus seemed a good sign. It +looked as though the boy’s mind addressed itself naturally to holy +things. But in a day or two he asked for more books. Mr. Carey took him into +his study, showed him the shelf in which he kept illustrated works, and chose +for him one that dealt with Rome. Philip took it greedily. The pictures led him +to a new amusement. He began to read the page before and the page after each +engraving to find out what it was about, and soon he lost all interest in his +toys. +</p> + +<p> +Then, when no one was near, he took out books for himself; and perhaps because +the first impression on his mind was made by an Eastern town, he found his +chief amusement in those which described the Levant. His heart beat with +excitement at the pictures of mosques and rich palaces; but there was one, in a +book on Constantinople, which peculiarly stirred his imagination. It was called +the Hall of the Thousand Columns. It was a Byzantine cistern, which the popular +fancy had endowed with fantastic vastness; and the legend which he read told +that a boat was always moored at the entrance to tempt the unwary, but no +traveller venturing into the darkness had ever been seen again. And Philip +wondered whether the boat went on for ever through one pillared alley after +another or came at last to some strange mansion. +</p> + +<p> +One day a good fortune befell him, for he hit upon Lane’s translation of +The Thousand Nights and a Night. He was captured first by the illustrations, +and then he began to read, to start with, the stories that dealt with magic, +and then the others; and those he liked he read again and again. He could think +of nothing else. He forgot the life about him. He had to be called two or three +times before he would come to his dinner. Insensibly he formed the most +delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus +he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did +not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would +make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment. Presently +he began to read other things. His brain was precocious. His uncle and aunt, +seeing that he occupied himself and neither worried nor made a noise, ceased to +trouble themselves about him. Mr. Carey had so many books that he did not know +them, and as he read little he forgot the odd lots he had bought at one time +and another because they were cheap. Haphazard among the sermons and homilies, +the travels, the lives of the Saints, the Fathers, the histories of the church, +were old-fashioned novels; and these Philip at last discovered. He chose them +by their titles, and the first he read was The Lancashire Witches, and then he +read The Admirable Crichton, and then many more. Whenever he started a book +with two solitary travellers riding along the brink of a desperate ravine he +knew he was safe. +</p> + +<p> +The summer was come now, and the gardener, an old sailor, made him a hammock +and fixed it up for him in the branches of a weeping willow. And here for long +hours he lay, hidden from anyone who might come to the vicarage, reading, +reading passionately. Time passed and it was July; August came: on Sundays the +church was crowded with strangers, and the collection at the offertory often +amounted to two pounds. Neither the Vicar nor Mrs. Carey went out of the garden +much during this period; for they disliked strange faces, and they looked upon +the visitors from London with aversion. The house opposite was taken for six +weeks by a gentleman who had two little boys, and he sent in to ask if Philip +would like to go and play with them; but Mrs. Carey returned a polite refusal. +She was afraid that Philip would be corrupted by little boys from London. He +was going to be a clergyman, and it was necessary that he should be preserved +from contamination. She liked to see in him an infant Samuel. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>X</h2> + +<p> +The Careys made up their minds to send Philip to King’s School at +Tercanbury. The neighbouring clergy sent their sons there. It was united by +long tradition to the Cathedral: its headmaster was an honorary Canon, and a +past headmaster was the Archdeacon. Boys were encouraged there to aspire to +Holy Orders, and the education was such as might prepare an honest lad to spend +his life in God’s service. A preparatory school was attached to it, and +to this it was arranged that Philip should go. Mr. Carey took him into +Tercanbury one Thursday afternoon towards the end of September. All day Philip +had been excited and rather frightened. He knew little of school life but what +he had read in the stories of The Boy’s Own Paper. He had also read Eric, +or Little by Little. +</p> + +<p> +When they got out of the train at Tercanbury, Philip felt sick with +apprehension, and during the drive in to the town sat pale and silent. The high +brick wall in front of the school gave it the look of a prison. There was a +little door in it, which opened on their ringing; and a clumsy, untidy man came +out and fetched Philip’s tin trunk and his play-box. They were shown into +the drawing-room; it was filled with massive, ugly furniture, and the chairs of +the suite were placed round the walls with a forbidding rigidity. They waited +for the headmaster. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s Mr. Watson like?” asked Philip, after a while. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll see for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +There was another pause. Mr. Carey wondered why the headmaster did not come. +Presently Philip made an effort and spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him I’ve got a club-foot,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Before Mr. Carey could speak the door burst open and Mr. Watson swept into the +room. To Philip he seemed gigantic. He was a man of over six feet high, and +broad, with enormous hands and a great red beard; he talked loudly in a jovial +manner; but his aggressive cheerfulness struck terror in Philip’s heart. +He shook hands with Mr. Carey, and then took Philip’s small hand in his. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, young fellow, are you glad to come to school?” he shouted. +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened and found no word to answer. +</p> + +<p> +“How old are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nine,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You must say sir,” said his uncle. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect you’ve got a good lot to learn,” the headmaster +bellowed cheerily. +</p> + +<p> +To give the boy confidence he began to tickle him with rough fingers. Philip, +feeling shy and uncomfortable, squirmed under his touch. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve put him in the small dormitory for the present…. You’ll +like that, won’t you?” he added to Philip. “Only eight of you +in there. You won’t feel so strange.” +</p> + +<p> +Then the door opened, and Mrs. Watson came in. She was a dark woman with black +hair, neatly parted in the middle. She had curiously thick lips and a small +round nose. Her eyes were large and black. There was a singular coldness in her +appearance. She seldom spoke and smiled more seldom still. Her husband +introduced Mr. Carey to her, and then gave Philip a friendly push towards her. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a new boy, Helen, His name’s Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +Without a word she shook hands with Philip and then sat down, not speaking, +while the headmaster asked Mr. Carey how much Philip knew and what books he had +been working with. The Vicar of Blackstable was a little embarrassed by Mr. +Watson’s boisterous heartiness, and in a moment or two got up. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’d better leave Philip with you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right,” said Mr. Watson. “He’ll be +safe with me. He’ll get on like a house on fire. Won’t you, young +fellow?” +</p> + +<p> +Without waiting for an answer from Philip the big man burst into a great bellow +of laughter. Mr. Carey kissed Philip on the forehead and went away. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along, young fellow,” shouted Mr. Watson. “I’ll +show you the school-room.” +</p> + +<p> +He swept out of the drawing-room with giant strides, and Philip hurriedly +limped behind him. He was taken into a long, bare room with two tables that ran +along its whole length; on each side of them were wooden forms. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody much here yet,” said Mr. Watson. “I’ll just +show you the playground, and then I’ll leave you to shift for +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Watson led the way. Philip found himself in a large play-ground with high +brick walls on three sides of it. On the fourth side was an iron railing +through which you saw a vast lawn and beyond this some of the buildings of +King’s School. One small boy was wandering disconsolately, kicking up the +gravel as he walked. +</p> + +<p> +“Hulloa, Venning,” shouted Mr. Watson. “When did you turn +up?” +</p> + +<p> +The small boy came forward and shook hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s a new boy. He’s older and bigger than you, so +don’t you bully him.” +</p> + +<p> +The headmaster glared amicably at the two children, filling them with fear by +the roar of his voice, and then with a guffaw left them. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your father?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Does your mother wash?” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother’s dead, too.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought this answer would cause the boy a certain awkwardness, but +Venning was not to be turned from his facetiousness for so little. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, did she wash?” he went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Philip indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“She was a washerwoman then?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, she wasn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then she didn’t wash.” +</p> + +<p> +The little boy crowed with delight at the success of his dialectic. Then he +caught sight of Philip’s feet. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with your foot?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip instinctively tried to withdraw it from sight. He hid it behind the one +which was whole. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a club-foot,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve always had it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have a look.” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t then.” +</p> + +<p> +The little boy accompanied the words with a sharp kick on Philip’s shin, +which Philip did not expect and thus could not guard against. The pain was so +great that it made him gasp, but greater than the pain was the surprise. He did +not know why Venning kicked him. He had not the presence of mind to give him a +black eye. Besides, the boy was smaller than he, and he had read in The +Boy’s Own Paper that it was a mean thing to hit anyone smaller than +yourself. While Philip was nursing his shin a third boy appeared, and his +tormentor left him. In a little while he noticed that the pair were talking +about him, and he felt they were looking at his feet. He grew hot and +uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +But others arrived, a dozen together, and then more, and they began to talk +about their doings during the holidays, where they had been, and what wonderful +cricket they had played. A few new boys appeared, and with these presently +Philip found himself talking. He was shy and nervous. He was anxious to make +himself pleasant, but he could not think of anything to say. He was asked a +great many questions and answered them all quite willingly. One boy asked him +whether he could play cricket. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” answered Philip. “I’ve got a club-foot.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy looked down quickly and reddened. Philip saw that he felt he had asked +an unseemly question. He was too shy to apologise and looked at Philip +awkwardly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XI</h2> + +<p> +Next morning when the clanging of a bell awoke Philip he looked round his +cubicle in astonishment. Then a voice sang out, and he remembered where he was. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you awake, Singer?” +</p> + +<p> +The partitions of the cubicle were of polished pitch-pine, and there was a +green curtain in front. In those days there was little thought of ventilation, +and the windows were closed except when the dormitory was aired in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +Philip got up and knelt down to say his prayers. It was a cold morning, and he +shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayers were +more acceptable to God if he said them in his nightshirt than if he waited till +he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for he was beginning to realise that +he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers. +Then he washed. There were two baths for the fifty boarders, and each boy had a +bath once a week. The rest of his washing was done in a small basin on a +wash-stand, which with the bed and a chair, made up the furniture of each +cubicle. The boys chatted gaily while they dressed. Philip was all ears. Then +another bell sounded, and they ran downstairs. They took their seats on the +forms on each side of the two long tables in the school-room; and Mr. Watson, +followed by his wife and the servants, came in and sat down. Mr. Watson read +prayers in an impressive manner, and the supplications thundered out in his +loud voice as though they were threats personally addressed to each boy. Philip +listened with anxiety. Then Mr. Watson read a chapter from the Bible, and the +servants trooped out. In a moment the untidy youth brought in two large pots of +tea and on a second journey immense dishes of bread and butter. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had a squeamish appetite, and the thick slabs of poor butter on the +bread turned his stomach, but he saw other boys scraping it off and followed +their example. They all had potted meats and such like, which they had brought +in their play-boxes; and some had ‘extras,’ eggs or bacon, upon +which Mr. Watson made a profit. When he had asked Mr. Carey whether Philip was +to have these, Mr. Carey replied that he did not think boys should be spoilt. +Mr. Watson quite agreed with him—he considered nothing was better than +bread and butter for growing lads—but some parents, unduly pampering +their offspring, insisted on it. +</p> + +<p> +Philip noticed that ‘extras’ gave boys a certain consideration and +made up his mind, when he wrote to Aunt Louisa, to ask for them. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast the boys wandered out into the play-ground. Here the day-boys +were gradually assembling. They were sons of the local clergy, of the officers +at the Depot, and of such manufacturers or men of business as the old town +possessed. Presently a bell rang, and they all trooped into school. This +consisted of a large, long room at opposite ends of which two under-masters +conducted the second and third forms, and of a smaller one, leading out of it, +used by Mr. Watson, who taught the first form. To attach the preparatory to the +senior school these three classes were known officially, on speech days and in +reports, as upper, middle, and lower second. Philip was put in the last. The +master, a red-faced man with a pleasant voice, was called Rice; he had a jolly +manner with boys, and the time passed quickly. Philip was surprised when it was +a quarter to eleven and they were let out for ten minutes’ rest. +</p> + +<p> +The whole school rushed noisily into the play-ground. The new boys were told to +go into the middle, while the others stationed themselves along opposite walls. +They began to play Pig in the Middle. The old boys ran from wall to wall while +the new boys tried to catch them: when one was seized and the mystic words +said—one, two, three, and a pig for me—he became a prisoner and, +turning sides, helped to catch those who were still free. Philip saw a boy +running past and tried to catch him, but his limp gave him no chance; and the +runners, taking their opportunity, made straight for the ground he covered. +Then one of them had the brilliant idea of imitating Philip’s clumsy run. +Other boys saw it and began to laugh; then they all copied the first; and they +ran round Philip, limping grotesquely, screaming in their treble voices with +shrill laughter. They lost their heads with the delight of their new amusement, +and choked with helpless merriment. One of them tripped Philip up and he fell, +heavily as he always fell, and cut his knee. They laughed all the louder when +he got up. A boy pushed him from behind, and he would have fallen again if +another had not caught him. The game was forgotten in the entertainment of +Philip’s deformity. One of them invented an odd, rolling limp that struck +the rest as supremely ridiculous, and several of the boys lay down on the +ground and rolled about in laughter: Philip was completely scared. He could not +make out why they were laughing at him. His heart beat so that he could hardly +breathe, and he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. He stood +still stupidly while the boys ran round him, mimicking and laughing; they +shouted to him to try and catch them; but he did not move. He did not want them +to see him run any more. He was using all his strength to prevent himself from +crying. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the bell rang, and they all trooped back to school. Philip’s +knee was bleeding, and he was dusty and dishevelled. For some minutes Mr. Rice +could not control his form. They were excited still by the strange novelty, and +Philip saw one or two of them furtively looking down at his feet. He tucked +them under the bench. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon they went up to play football, but Mr. Watson stopped Philip +on the way out after dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you can’t play football, Carey?” he asked him. +</p> + +<p> +Philip blushed self-consciously. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. You’d better go up to the field. You can walk as far as +that, can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had no idea where the field was, but he answered all the same. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The boys went in charge of Mr. Rice, who glanced at Philip and seeing he had +not changed, asked why he was not going to play. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Watson said I needn’t, sir,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +There were boys all round him, looking at him curiously, and a feeling of shame +came over Philip. He looked down without answering. Others gave the reply. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got a club-foot, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Rice was quite young; he had only taken his degree a year before; and he +was suddenly embarrassed. His instinct was to beg the boy’s pardon, but +he was too shy to do so. He made his voice gruff and loud. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then, you boys, what are you waiting about for? Get on with +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Some of them had already started and those that were left now set off, in +groups of two or three. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better come along with me, Carey,” said the master +“You don’t know the way, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip guessed the kindness, and a sob came to his throat. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t go very fast, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll go very slow,” said the master, with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart went out to the red-faced, commonplace young man who said +a gentle word to him. He suddenly felt less unhappy. +</p> + +<p> +But at night when they went up to bed and were undressing, the boy who was +called Singer came out of his cubicle and put his head in Philip’s. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, let’s look at your foot,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He jumped into bed quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say no to me,” said Singer. “Come on, +Mason.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy in the next cubicle was looking round the corner, and at the words he +slipped in. They made for Philip and tried to tear the bed-clothes off him, but +he held them tightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t you leave me alone?” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +Singer seized a brush and with the back of it beat Philip’s hands +clenched on the blanket. Philip cried out. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you show us your foot quietly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +In desperation Philip clenched his fist and hit the boy who tormented him, but +he was at a disadvantage, and the boy seized his arm. He began to turn it. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t, don’t,” said Philip. “You’ll +break my arm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop still then and put out your foot.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip gave a sob and a gasp. The boy gave the arm another wrench. The pain was +unendurable. +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I’ll do it,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He put out his foot. Singer still kept his hand on Philip’s wrist. He +looked curiously at the deformity. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it beastly?” said Mason. +</p> + +<p> +Another came in and looked too. +</p> + +<p> +“Ugh,” he said, in disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“My word, it is rum,” said Singer, making a face. “Is it +hard?” +</p> + +<p> +He touched it with the tip of his forefinger, cautiously, as though it were +something that had a life of its own. Suddenly they heard Mr. Watson’s +heavy tread on the stairs. They threw the clothes back on Philip and dashed +like rabbits into their cubicles. Mr. Watson came into the dormitory. Raising +himself on tiptoe he could see over the rod that bore the green curtain, and he +looked into two or three of the cubicles. The little boys were safely in bed. +He put out the light and went out. +</p> + +<p> +Singer called out to Philip, but he did not answer. He had got his teeth in the +pillow so that his sobbing should be inaudible. He was not crying for the pain +they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered when they looked +at his foot, but with rage at himself because, unable to stand the torture, he +had put out his foot of his own accord. +</p> + +<p> +And then he felt the misery of his life. It seemed to his childish mind that +this unhappiness must go on for ever. For no particular reason he remembered +that cold morning when Emma had taken him out of bed and put him beside his +mother. He had not thought of it once since it happened, but now he seemed to +feel the warmth of his mother’s body against his and her arms around him. +Suddenly it seemed to him that his life was a dream, his mother’s death, +and the life at the vicarage, and these two wretched days at school, and he +would awake in the morning and be back again at home. His tears dried as he +thought of it. He was too unhappy, it must be nothing but a dream, and his +mother was alive, and Emma would come up presently and go to bed. He fell +asleep. +</p> + +<p> +But when he awoke next morning it was to the clanging of a bell, and the first +thing his eyes saw was the green curtain of his cubicle. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XII</h2> + +<p> +As time went on Philip’s deformity ceased to interest. It was accepted +like one boy’s red hair and another’s unreasonable corpulence. But +meanwhile he had grown horribly sensitive. He never ran if he could help it, +because he knew it made his limp more conspicuous, and he adopted a peculiar +walk. He stood still as much as he could, with his club-foot behind the other, +so that it should not attract notice, and he was constantly on the look out for +any reference to it. Because he could not join in the games which other boys +played, their life remained strange to him; he only interested himself from the +outside in their doings; and it seemed to him that there was a barrier between +them and him. Sometimes they seemed to think that it was his fault if he could +not play football, and he was unable to make them understand. He was left a +good deal to himself. He had been inclined to talkativeness, but gradually he +became silent. He began to think of the difference between himself and others. +</p> + +<p> +The biggest boy in his dormitory, Singer, took a dislike to him, and Philip, +small for his age, had to put up with a good deal of hard treatment. About +half-way through the term a mania ran through the school for a game called +Nibs. It was a game for two, played on a table or a form with steel pens. You +had to push your nib with the finger-nail so as to get the point of it over +your opponent’s, while he manoeuvred to prevent this and to get the point +of his nib over the back of yours; when this result was achieved you breathed +on the ball of your thumb, pressed it hard on the two nibs, and if you were +able then to lift them without dropping either, both nibs became yours. Soon +nothing was seen but boys playing this game, and the more skilful acquired vast +stores of nibs. But in a little while Mr. Watson made up his mind that it was a +form of gambling, forbade the game, and confiscated all the nibs in the +boys’ possession. Philip had been very adroit, and it was with a heavy +heart that he gave up his winning; but his fingers itched to play still, and a +few days later, on his way to the football field, he went into a shop and +bought a pennyworth of J pens. He carried them loose in his pocket and enjoyed +feeling them. Presently Singer found out that he had them. Singer had given up +his nibs too, but he had kept back a very large one, called a Jumbo, which was +almost unconquerable, and he could not resist the opportunity of getting +Philip’s Js out of him. Though Philip knew that he was at a disadvantage +with his small nibs, he had an adventurous disposition and was willing to take +the risk; besides, he was aware that Singer would not allow him to refuse. He +had not played for a week and sat down to the game now with a thrill of +excitement. He lost two of his small nibs quickly, and Singer was jubilant, but +the third time by some chance the Jumbo slipped round and Philip was able to +push his J across it. He crowed with triumph. At that moment Mr. Watson came +in. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +He looked from Singer to Philip, but neither answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know that I’ve forbidden you to play that idiotic +game?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart beat fast. He knew what was coming and was dreadfully +frightened, but in his fright there was a certain exultation. He had never been +swished. Of course it would hurt, but it was something to boast about +afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +“Come into my study.” +</p> + +<p> +The headmaster turned, and they followed him side by side Singer whispered to +Philip: +</p> + +<p> +“We’re in for it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Watson pointed to Singer. +</p> + +<p> +“Bend over,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, very white, saw the boy quiver at each stroke, and after the third he +heard him cry out. Three more followed. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do. Get up.” +</p> + +<p> +Singer stood up. The tears were streaming down his face. Philip stepped +forward. Mr. Watson looked at him for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to cane you. You’re a new boy. And I +can’t hit a cripple. Go away, both of you, and don’t be naughty +again.” +</p> + +<p> +When they got back into the school-room a group of boys, who had learned in +some mysterious way what was happening, were waiting for them. They set upon +Singer at once with eager questions. Singer faced them, his face red with the +pain and marks of tears still on his cheeks. He pointed with his head at +Philip, who was standing a little behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“He got off because he’s a cripple,” he said angrily. +</p> + +<p> +Philip stood silent and flushed. He felt that they looked at him with contempt. +</p> + +<p> +“How many did you get?” one boy asked Singer. +</p> + +<p> +But he did not answer. He was angry because he had been hurt +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ask me to play Nibs with you again,” he said to +Philip. “It’s jolly nice for you. You don’t risk +anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t ask you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you!” +</p> + +<p> +He quickly put out his foot and tripped Philip up. Philip was always rather +unsteady on his feet, and he fell heavily to the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Cripple,” said Singer. +</p> + +<p> +For the rest of the term he tormented Philip cruelly, and, though Philip tried +to keep out of his way, the school was so small that it was impossible; he +tried being friendly and jolly with him; he abased himself, so far as to buy +him a knife; but though Singer took the knife he was not placated. Once or +twice, driven beyond endurance, he hit and kicked the bigger boy, but Singer +was so much stronger that Philip was helpless, and he was always forced after +more or less torture to beg his pardon. It was that which rankled with Philip: +he could not bear the humiliation of apologies, which were wrung from him by +pain greater than he could bear. And what made it worse was that there seemed +no end to his wretchedness; Singer was only eleven and would not go to the +upper school till he was thirteen. Philip realised that he must live two years +with a tormentor from whom there was no escape. He was only happy while he was +working and when he got into bed. And often there recurred to him then that +queer feeling that his life with all its misery was nothing but a dream, and +that he would awake in the morning in his own little bed in London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XIII</h2> + +<p> +Two years passed, and Philip was nearly twelve. He was in the first form, +within two or three places of the top, and after Christmas when several boys +would be leaving for the senior school he would be head boy. He had already +quite a collection of prizes, worthless books on bad paper, but in gorgeous +bindings decorated with the arms of the school: his position had freed him from +bullying, and he was not unhappy. His fellows forgave him his success because +of his deformity. +</p> + +<p> +“After all, it’s jolly easy for him to get prizes,” they +said, “there’s nothing he CAN do but swat.” +</p> + +<p> +He had lost his early terror of Mr. Watson. He had grown used to the loud +voice, and when the headmaster’s heavy hand was laid on his shoulder +Philip discerned vaguely the intention of a caress. He had the good memory +which is more useful for scholastic achievements than mental power, and he knew +Mr. Watson expected him to leave the preparatory school with a scholarship. +</p> + +<p> +But he had grown very self-conscious. The new-born child does not realise that +his body is more a part of himself than surrounding objects, and will play with +his toes without any feeling that they belong to him more than the rattle by +his side; and it is only by degrees, through pain, that he understands the fact +of the body. And experiences of the same kind are necessary for the individual +to become conscious of himself; but here there is the difference that, although +everyone becomes equally conscious of his body as a separate and complete +organism, everyone does not become equally conscious of himself as a complete +and separate personality. The feeling of apartness from others comes to most +with puberty, but it is not always developed to such a degree as to make the +difference between the individual and his fellows noticeable to the individual. +It is such as he, as little conscious of himself as the bee in a hive, who are +the lucky in life, for they have the best chance of happiness: their activities +are shared by all, and their pleasures are only pleasures because they are +enjoyed in common; you will see them on Whit-Monday dancing on Hampstead Heath, +shouting at a football match, or from club windows in Pall Mall cheering a +royal procession. It is because of them that man has been called a social +animal. +</p> + +<p> +Philip passed from the innocence of childhood to bitter consciousness of +himself by the ridicule which his club-foot had excited. The circumstances of +his case were so peculiar that he could not apply to them the ready-made rules +which acted well enough in ordinary affairs, and he was forced to think for +himself. The many books he had read filled his mind with ideas which, because +he only half understood them, gave more scope to his imagination. Beneath his +painful shyness something was growing up within him, and obscurely he realised +his personality. But at times it gave him odd surprises; he did things, he knew +not why, and afterwards when he thought of them found himself all at sea. +</p> + +<p> +There was a boy called Luard between whom and Philip a friendship had arisen, +and one day, when they were playing together in the school-room, Luard began to +perform some trick with an ebony pen-holder of Philip’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t play the giddy ox,” said Philip. “You’ll +only break it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t.” +</p> + +<p> +But no sooner were the words out of the boy’s mouth than the pen-holder +snapped in two. Luard looked at Philip with dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say, I’m awfully sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +The tears rolled down Philip’s cheeks, but he did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, what’s the matter?” said Luard, with surprise. +“I’ll get you another one exactly the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not about the pen-holder I care,” said Philip, in a +trembling voice, “only it was given me by my mater, just before she +died.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m awfully sorry, Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your fault.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip took the two pieces of the pen-holder and looked at them. He tried to +restrain his sobs. He felt utterly miserable. And yet he could not tell why, +for he knew quite well that he had bought the pen-holder during his last +holidays at Blackstable for one and twopence. He did not know in the least what +had made him invent that pathetic story, but he was quite as unhappy as though +it had been true. The pious atmosphere of the vicarage and the religious tone +of the school had made Philip’s conscience very sensitive; he absorbed +insensibly the feeling about him that the Tempter was ever on the watch to gain +his immortal soul; and though he was not more truthful than most boys he never +told a lie without suffering from remorse. When he thought over this incident +he was very much distressed, and made up his mind that he must go to Luard and +tell him that the story was an invention. Though he dreaded humiliation more +than anything in the world, he hugged himself for two or three days at the +thought of the agonising joy of humiliating himself to the Glory of God. But he +never got any further. He satisfied his conscience by the more comfortable +method of expressing his repentance only to the Almighty. But he could not +understand why he should have been so genuinely affected by the story he was +making up. The tears that flowed down his grubby cheeks were real tears. Then +by some accident of association there occurred to him that scene when Emma had +told him of his mother’s death, and, though he could not speak for +crying, he had insisted on going in to say good-bye to the Misses Watkin so +that they might see his grief and pity him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XIV</h2> + +<p> +Then a wave of religiosity passed through the school. Bad language was no +longer heard, and the little nastinesses of small boys were looked upon with +hostility; the bigger boys, like the lords temporal of the Middle Ages, used +the strength of their arms to persuade those weaker than themselves to virtuous +courses. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, his restless mind avid for new things, became very devout. He heard +soon that it was possible to join a Bible League, and wrote to London for +particulars. These consisted in a form to be filled up with the +applicant’s name, age, and school; a solemn declaration to be signed that +he would read a set portion of Holy Scripture every night for a year; and a +request for half a crown; this, it was explained, was demanded partly to prove +the earnestness of the applicant’s desire to become a member of the +League, and partly to cover clerical expenses. Philip duly sent the papers and +the money, and in return received a calendar worth about a penny, on which was +set down the appointed passage to be read each day, and a sheet of paper on one +side of which was a picture of the Good Shepherd and a lamb, and on the other, +decoratively framed in red lines, a short prayer which had to be said before +beginning to read. +</p> + +<p> +Every evening he undressed as quickly as possible in order to have time for his +task before the gas was put out. He read industriously, as he read always, +without criticism, stories of cruelty, deceit, ingratitude, dishonesty, and low +cunning. Actions which would have excited his horror in the life about him, in +the reading passed through his mind without comment, because they were +committed under the direct inspiration of God. The method of the League was to +alternate a book of the Old Testament with a book of the New, and one night +Philip came across these words of Jesus Christ: +</p> + +<p> +If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the +fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be +thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. +</p> + +<p> +And all this, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. +</p> + +<p> +They made no particular impression on him, but it happened that two or three +days later, being Sunday, the Canon in residence chose them for the text of his +sermon. Even if Philip had wanted to hear this it would have been impossible, +for the boys of King’s School sit in the choir, and the pulpit stands at +the corner of the transept so that the preacher’s back is almost turned +to them. The distance also is so great that it needs a man with a fine voice +and a knowledge of elocution to make himself heard in the choir; and according +to long usage the Canons of Tercanbury are chosen for their learning rather +than for any qualities which might be of use in a cathedral church. But the +words of the text, perhaps because he had read them so short a while before, +came clearly enough to Philip’s ears, and they seemed on a sudden to have +a personal application. He thought about them through most of the sermon, and +that night, on getting into bed, he turned over the pages of the Gospel and +found once more the passage. Though he believed implicitly everything he saw in +print, he had learned already that in the Bible things that said one thing +quite clearly often mysteriously meant another. There was no one he liked to +ask at school, so he kept the question he had in mind till the Christmas +holidays, and then one day he made an opportunity. It was after supper and +prayers were just finished. Mrs. Carey was counting the eggs that Mary Ann had +brought in as usual and writing on each one the date. Philip stood at the table +and pretended to turn listlessly the pages of the Bible. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Uncle William, this passage here, does it really mean +that?” +</p> + +<p> +He put his finger against it as though he had come across it accidentally. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey looked up over his spectacles. He was holding The Blackstable Times +in front of the fire. It had come in that evening damp from the press, and the +Vicar always aired it for ten minutes before he began to read. +</p> + +<p> +“What passage is that?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, this about if you have faith you can remove mountains.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it says so in the Bible it is so, Philip,” said Mrs. Carey +gently, taking up the plate-basket. +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at his uncle for an answer. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a matter of faith.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say that if you really believed you could move +mountains you could?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the grace of God,” said the Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, say good-night to your uncle, Philip,” said Aunt Louisa. +“You’re not wanting to move a mountain tonight, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip allowed himself to be kissed on the forehead by his uncle and preceded +Mrs. Carey upstairs. He had got the information he wanted. His little room was +icy, and he shivered when he put on his nightshirt. But he always felt that his +prayers were more pleasing to God when he said them under conditions of +discomfort. The coldness of his hands and feet were an offering to the +Almighty. And tonight he sank on his knees; buried his face in his hands, and +prayed to God with all his might that He would make his club-foot whole. It was +a very small thing beside the moving of mountains. He knew that God could do it +if He wished, and his own faith was complete. Next morning, finishing his +prayers with the same request, he fixed a date for the miracle. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, God, in Thy loving mercy and goodness, if it be Thy will, please +make my foot all right on the night before I go back to school.” +</p> + +<p> +He was glad to get his petition into a formula, and he repeated it later in the +dining-room during the short pause which the Vicar always made after prayers, +before he rose from his knees. He said it again in the evening and again, +shivering in his nightshirt, before he got into bed. And he believed. For once +he looked forward with eagerness to the end of the holidays. He laughed to +himself as he thought of his uncle’s astonishment when he ran down the +stairs three at a time; and after breakfast he and Aunt Louisa would have to +hurry out and buy a new pair of boots. At school they would be astounded. +</p> + +<p> +“Hulloa, Carey, what have you done with your foot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s all right now,” he would answer casually, as though +it were the most natural thing in the world. +</p> + +<p> +He would be able to play football. His heart leaped as he saw himself running, +running, faster than any of the other boys. At the end of the Easter term there +were the sports, and he would be able to go in for the races; he rather fancied +himself over the hurdles. It would be splendid to be like everyone else, not to +be stared at curiously by new boys who did not know about his deformity, nor at +the baths in summer to need incredible precautions, while he was undressing, +before he could hide his foot in the water. +</p> + +<p> +He prayed with all the power of his soul. No doubts assailed him. He was +confident in the word of God. And the night before he was to go back to school +he went up to bed tremulous with excitement. There was snow on the ground, and +Aunt Louisa had allowed herself the unaccustomed luxury of a fire in her +bed-room; but in Philip’s little room it was so cold that his fingers +were numb, and he had great difficulty in undoing his collar. His teeth +chattered. The idea came to him that he must do something more than usual to +attract the attention of God, and he turned back the rug which was in front of +his bed so that he could kneel on the bare boards; and then it struck him that +his nightshirt was a softness that might displease his Maker, so he took it off +and said his prayers naked. When he got into bed he was so cold that for some +time he could not sleep, but when he did, it was so soundly that Mary Ann had +to shake him when she brought in his hot water next morning. She talked to him +while she drew the curtains, but he did not answer; he had remembered at once +that this was the morning for the miracle. His heart was filled with joy and +gratitude. His first instinct was to put down his hand and feel the foot which +was whole now, but to do this seemed to doubt the goodness of God. He knew that +his foot was well. But at last he made up his mind, and with the toes of his +right foot he just touched his left. Then he passed his hand over it. +</p> + +<p> +He limped downstairs just as Mary Ann was going into the dining-room for +prayers, and then he sat down to breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very quiet this morning, Philip,” said Aunt Louisa +presently. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s thinking of the good breakfast he’ll have at school +to-morrow,” said the Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +When Philip answered, it was in a way that always irritated his uncle, with +something that had nothing to do with the matter in hand. He called it a bad +habit of wool-gathering. +</p> + +<p> +“Supposing you’d asked God to do something,” said Philip, +“and really believed it was going to happen, like moving a mountain, I +mean, and you had faith, and it didn’t happen, what would it mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“What a funny boy you are!” said Aunt Louisa. “You asked +about moving mountains two or three weeks ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would just mean that you hadn’t got faith,” answered +Uncle William. +</p> + +<p> +Philip accepted the explanation. If God had not cured him, it was because he +did not really believe. And yet he did not see how he could believe more than +he did. But perhaps he had not given God enough time. He had only asked Him for +nineteen days. In a day or two he began his prayer again, and this time he +fixed upon Easter. That was the day of His Son’s glorious resurrection, +and God in His happiness might be mercifully inclined. But now Philip added +other means of attaining his desire: he began to wish, when he saw a new moon +or a dappled horse, and he looked out for shooting stars; during exeat they had +a chicken at the vicarage, and he broke the lucky bone with Aunt Louisa and +wished again, each time that his foot might be made whole. He was appealing +unconsciously to gods older to his race than the God of Israel. And he +bombarded the Almighty with his prayer, at odd times of the day, whenever it +occurred to him, in identical words always, for it seemed to him important to +make his request in the same terms. But presently the feeling came to him that +this time also his faith would not be great enough. He could not resist the +doubt that assailed him. He made his own experience into a general rule. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose no one ever has faith enough,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was like the salt which his nurse used to tell him about: you could catch +any bird by putting salt on his tail; and once he had taken a little bag of it +into Kensington Gardens. But he could never get near enough to put the salt on +a bird’s tail. Before Easter he had given up the struggle. He felt a dull +resentment against his uncle for taking him in. The text which spoke of the +moving of mountains was just one of those that said one thing and meant +another. He thought his uncle had been playing a practical joke on him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XV</h2> + +<p> +The King’s School at Tercanbury, to which Philip went when he was +thirteen, prided itself on its antiquity. It traced its origin to an abbey +school, founded before the Conquest, where the rudiments of learning were +taught by Augustine monks; and, like many another establishment of this sort, +on the destruction of the monasteries it had been reorganised by the officers +of King Henry VIII and thus acquired its name. Since then, pursuing its modest +course, it had given to the sons of the local gentry and of the professional +people of Kent an education sufficient to their needs. One or two men of +letters, beginning with a poet, than whom only Shakespeare had a more splendid +genius, and ending with a writer of prose whose view of life has affected +profoundly the generation of which Philip was a member, had gone forth from its +gates to achieve fame; it had produced one or two eminent lawyers, but eminent +lawyers are common, and one or two soldiers of distinction; but during the +three centuries since its separation from the monastic order it had trained +especially men of the church, bishops, deans, canons, and above all country +clergymen: there were boys in the school whose fathers, grandfathers, +great-grandfathers, had been educated there and had all been rectors of +parishes in the diocese of Tercanbury; and they came to it with their minds +made up already to be ordained. But there were signs notwithstanding that even +there changes were coming; for a few, repeating what they had heard at home, +said that the Church was no longer what it used to be. It wasn’t so much +the money; but the class of people who went in for it weren’t the same; +and two or three boys knew curates whose fathers were tradesmen: they’d +rather go out to the Colonies (in those days the Colonies were still the last +hope of those who could get nothing to do in England) than be a curate under +some chap who wasn’t a gentleman. At King’s School, as at +Blackstable Vicarage, a tradesman was anyone who was not lucky enough to own +land (and here a fine distinction was made between the gentleman farmer and the +landowner), or did not follow one of the four professions to which it was +possible for a gentleman to belong. Among the day-boys, of whom there were +about a hundred and fifty, sons of the local gentry and of the men stationed at +the depot, those whose fathers were engaged in business were made to feel the +degradation of their state. +</p> + +<p> +The masters had no patience with modern ideas of education, which they read of +sometimes in The Times or The Guardian, and hoped fervently that King’s +School would remain true to its old traditions. The dead languages were taught +with such thoroughness that an old boy seldom thought of Homer or Virgil in +after life without a qualm of boredom; and though in the common room at dinner +one or two bolder spirits suggested that mathematics were of increasing +importance, the general feeling was that they were a less noble study than the +classics. Neither German nor chemistry was taught, and French only by the +form-masters; they could keep order better than a foreigner, and, since they +knew the grammar as well as any Frenchman, it seemed unimportant that none of +them could have got a cup of coffee in the restaurant at Boulogne unless the +waiter had known a little English. Geography was taught chiefly by making boys +draw maps, and this was a favourite occupation, especially when the country +dealt with was mountainous: it was possible to waste a great deal of time in +drawing the Andes or the Apennines. The masters, graduates of Oxford or +Cambridge, were ordained and unmarried; if by chance they wished to marry they +could only do so by accepting one of the smaller livings at the disposal of the +Chapter; but for many years none of them had cared to leave the refined society +of Tercanbury, which owing to the cavalry depot had a martial as well as an +ecclesiastical tone, for the monotony of life in a country rectory; and they +were now all men of middle age. +</p> + +<p> +The headmaster, on the other hand, was obliged to be married and he conducted +the school till age began to tell upon him. When he retired he was rewarded +with a much better living than any of the under-masters could hope for, and an +honorary Canonry. +</p> + +<p> +But a year before Philip entered the school a great change had come over it. It +had been obvious for some time that Dr. Fleming, who had been headmaster for +the quarter of a century, was become too deaf to continue his work to the +greater glory of God; and when one of the livings on the outskirts of the city +fell vacant, with a stipend of six hundred a year, the Chapter offered it to +him in such a manner as to imply that they thought it high time for him to +retire. He could nurse his ailments comfortably on such an income. Two or three +curates who had hoped for preferment told their wives it was scandalous to give +a parish that needed a young, strong, and energetic man to an old fellow who +knew nothing of parochial work, and had feathered his nest already; but the +mutterings of the unbeneficed clergy do not reach the ears of a cathedral +Chapter. And as for the parishioners they had nothing to say in the matter, and +therefore nobody asked for their opinion. The Wesleyans and the Baptists both +had chapels in the village. +</p> + +<p> +When Dr. Fleming was thus disposed of it became necessary to find a successor. +It was contrary to the traditions of the school that one of the lower-masters +should be chosen. The common-room was unanimous in desiring the election of Mr. +Watson, headmaster of the preparatory school; he could hardly be described as +already a master of King’s School, they had all known him for twenty +years, and there was no danger that he would make a nuisance of himself. But +the Chapter sprang a surprise on them. It chose a man called Perkins. At first +nobody knew who Perkins was, and the name favourably impressed no one; but +before the shock of it had passed away, it was realised that Perkins was the +son of Perkins the linendraper. Dr. Fleming informed the masters just before +dinner, and his manner showed his consternation. Such of them as were dining +in, ate their meal almost in silence, and no reference was made to the matter +till the servants had left the room. Then they set to. The names of those +present on this occasion are unimportant, but they had been known to +generations of school-boys as Sighs, Tar, Winks, Squirts, and Pat. +</p> + +<p> +They all knew Tom Perkins. The first thing about him was that he was not a +gentleman. They remembered him quite well. He was a small, dark boy, with +untidy black hair and large eyes. He looked like a gipsy. He had come to the +school as a day-boy, with the best scholarship on their endowment, so that his +education had cost him nothing. Of course he was brilliant. At every Speech-Day +he was loaded with prizes. He was their show-boy, and they remembered now +bitterly their fear that he would try to get some scholarship at one of the +larger public schools and so pass out of their hands. Dr. Fleming had gone to +the linendraper his father—they all remembered the shop, Perkins and +Cooper, in St. Catherine’s Street—and said he hoped Tom would +remain with them till he went to Oxford. The school was Perkins and +Cooper’s best customer, and Mr. Perkins was only too glad to give the +required assurance. Tom Perkins continued to triumph, he was the finest +classical scholar that Dr. Fleming remembered, and on leaving the school took +with him the most valuable scholarship they had to offer. He got another at +Magdalen and settled down to a brilliant career at the University. The school +magazine recorded the distinctions he achieved year after year, and when he got +his double first Dr. Fleming himself wrote a few words of eulogy on the front +page. It was with greater satisfaction that they welcomed his success, since +Perkins and Cooper had fallen upon evil days: Cooper drank like a fish, and +just before Tom Perkins took his degree the linendrapers filed their petition +in bankruptcy. +</p> + +<p> +In due course Tom Perkins took Holy Orders and entered upon the profession for +which he was so admirably suited. He had been an assistant master at Wellington +and then at Rugby. +</p> + +<p> +But there was quite a difference between welcoming his success at other schools +and serving under his leadership in their own. Tar had frequently given him +lines, and Squirts had boxed his ears. They could not imagine how the Chapter +had made such a mistake. No one could be expected to forget that he was the son +of a bankrupt linendraper, and the alcoholism of Cooper seemed to increase the +disgrace. It was understood that the Dean had supported his candidature with +zeal, so the Dean would probably ask him to dinner; but would the pleasant +little dinners in the precincts ever be the same when Tom Perkins sat at the +table? And what about the depot? He really could not expect officers and +gentlemen to receive him as one of themselves. It would do the school +incalculable harm. Parents would be dissatisfied, and no one could be surprised +if there were wholesale withdrawals. And then the indignity of calling him Mr. +Perkins! The masters thought by way of protest of sending in their resignations +in a body, but the uneasy fear that they would be accepted with equanimity +restrained them. +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing is to prepare ourselves for changes,” said Sighs, +who had conducted the fifth form for five and twenty years with unparalleled +incompetence. +</p> + +<p> +And when they saw him they were not reassured. Dr. Fleming invited them to meet +him at luncheon. He was now a man of thirty-two, tall and lean, but with the +same wild and unkempt look they remembered on him as a boy. His clothes, +ill-made and shabby, were put on untidily. His hair was as black and as long as +ever, and he had plainly never learned to brush it; it fell over his forehead +with every gesture, and he had a quick movement of the hand with which he +pushed it back from his eyes. He had a black moustache and a beard which came +high up on his face almost to the cheek-bones, He talked to the masters quite +easily, as though he had parted from them a week or two before; he was +evidently delighted to see them. He seemed unconscious of the strangeness of +the position and appeared not to notice any oddness in being addressed as Mr. +Perkins. +</p> + +<p> +When he bade them good-bye, one of the masters, for something to say, remarked +that he was allowing himself plenty of time to catch his train. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go round and have a look at the shop,” he answered +cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +There was a distinct embarrassment. They wondered that he could be so tactless, +and to make it worse Dr. Fleming had not heard what he said. His wife shouted +it in his ear. +</p> + +<p> +“He wants to go round and look at his father’s old shop.” +</p> + +<p> +Only Tom Perkins was unconscious of the humiliation which the whole party felt. +He turned to Mrs. Fleming. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s got it now, d’you know?” +</p> + +<p> +She could hardly answer. She was very angry. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s still a linendraper’s,” she said bitterly. +“Grove is the name. We don’t deal there any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if he’d let me go over the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect he would if you explain who you are.” +</p> + +<p> +It was not till the end of dinner that evening that any reference was made in +the common-room to the subject that was in all their minds. Then it was Sighs +who asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what did you think of our new head?” They thought of the +conversation at luncheon. It was hardly a conversation; it was a monologue. +Perkins had talked incessantly. He talked very quickly, with a flow of easy +words and in a deep, resonant voice. He had a short, odd little laugh which +showed his white teeth. They had followed him with difficulty, for his mind +darted from subject to subject with a connection they did not always catch. He +talked of pedagogics, and this was natural enough; but he had much to say of +modern theories in Germany which they had never heard of and received with +misgiving. He talked of the classics, but he had been to Greece, and he +discoursed of archaeology; he had once spent a winter digging; they could not +see how that helped a man to teach boys to pass examinations, He talked of +politics. It sounded odd to them to hear him compare Lord Beaconsfield with +Alcibiades. He talked of Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule. They realised that he was +a Liberal. Their hearts sank. He talked of German philosophy and of French +fiction. They could not think a man profound whose interests were so diverse. +</p> + +<p> +It was Winks who summed up the general impression and put it into a form they +all felt conclusively damning. Winks was the master of the upper third, a +weak-kneed man with drooping eye-lids, He was too tall for his strength, and +his movements were slow and languid. He gave an impression of lassitude, and +his nickname was eminently appropriate. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s very enthusiastic,” said Winks. +</p> + +<p> +Enthusiasm was ill-bred. Enthusiasm was ungentlemanly. They thought of the +Salvation Army with its braying trumpets and its drums. Enthusiasm meant +change. They had goose-flesh when they thought of all the pleasant old habits +which stood in imminent danger. They hardly dared to look forward to the +future. +</p> + +<p> +“He looks more of a gipsy than ever,” said one, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if the Dean and Chapter knew that he was a Radical when they +elected him,” another observed bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +But conversation halted. They were too much disturbed for words. +</p> + +<p> +When Tar and Sighs were walking together to the Chapter House on Speech-Day a +week later, Tar, who had a bitter tongue, remarked to his colleague: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we’ve seen a good many Speech-Days here, haven’t we? I +wonder if we shall see another.” +</p> + +<p> +Sighs was more melancholy even than usual. +</p> + +<p> +“If anything worth having comes along in the way of a living I +don’t mind when I retire.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XVI</h2> + +<p> +A year passed, and when Philip came to the school the old masters were all in +their places; but a good many changes had taken place notwithstanding their +stubborn resistance, none the less formidable because it was concealed under an +apparent desire to fall in with the new head’s ideas. Though the +form-masters still taught French to the lower school, another master had come, +with a degree of doctor of philology from the University of Heidelberg and a +record of three years spent in a French lycee, to teach French to the upper +forms and German to anyone who cared to take it up instead of Greek. Another +master was engaged to teach mathematics more systematically than had been found +necessary hitherto. Neither of these was ordained. This was a real revolution, +and when the pair arrived the older masters received them with distrust. A +laboratory had been fitted up, army classes were instituted; they all said the +character of the school was changing. And heaven only knew what further +projects Mr. Perkins turned in that untidy head of his. The school was small as +public schools go, there were not more than two hundred boarders; and it was +difficult for it to grow larger, for it was huddled up against the Cathedral; +the precincts, with the exception of a house in which some of the masters +lodged, were occupied by the cathedral clergy; and there was no more room for +building. But Mr. Perkins devised an elaborate scheme by which he might obtain +sufficient space to make the school double its present size. He wanted to +attract boys from London. He thought it would be good for them to be thrown in +contact with the Kentish lads, and it would sharpen the country wits of these. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s against all our traditions,” said Sighs, when Mr. +Perkins made the suggestion to him. “We’ve rather gone out of our +way to avoid the contamination of boys from London.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what nonsense!” said Mr. Perkins. +</p> + +<p> +No one had ever told the form-master before that he talked nonsense, and he was +meditating an acid reply, in which perhaps he might insert a veiled reference +to hosiery, when Mr. Perkins in his impetuous way attacked him outrageously. +</p> + +<p> +“That house in the precincts—if you’d only marry I’d +get the Chapter to put another couple of stories on, and we’d make +dormitories and studies, and your wife could help you.” +</p> + +<p> +The elderly clergyman gasped. Why should he marry? He was fifty-seven, a man +couldn’t marry at fifty-seven. He couldn’t start looking after a +house at his time of life. He didn’t want to marry. If the choice lay +between that and the country living he would much sooner resign. All he wanted +now was peace and quietness. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not thinking of marrying,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins looked at him with his dark, bright eyes, and if there was a +twinkle in them poor Sighs never saw it. +</p> + +<p> +“What a pity! Couldn’t you marry to oblige me? It would help me a +great deal with the Dean and Chapter when I suggest rebuilding your +house.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mr. Perkins’ most unpopular innovation was his system of taking +occasionally another man’s form. He asked it as a favour, but after all +it was a favour which could not be refused, and as Tar, otherwise Mr. Turner, +said, it was undignified for all parties. He gave no warning, but after morning +prayers would say to one of the masters: +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you’d mind taking the Sixth today at eleven. +We’ll change over, shall we?” +</p> + +<p> +They did not know whether this was usual at other schools, but certainly it had +never been done at Tercanbury. The results were curious. Mr. Turner, who was +the first victim, broke the news to his form that the headmaster would take +them for Latin that day, and on the pretence that they might like to ask him a +question or two so that they should not make perfect fools of themselves, spent +the last quarter of an hour of the history lesson in construing for them the +passage of Livy which had been set for the day; but when he rejoined his class +and looked at the paper on which Mr. Perkins had written the marks, a surprise +awaited him; for the two boys at the top of the form seemed to have done very +ill, while others who had never distinguished themselves before were given full +marks. When he asked Eldridge, his cleverest boy, what was the meaning of this +the answer came sullenly: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Perkins never gave us any construing to do. He asked me what I knew +about General Gordon.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Turner looked at him in astonishment. The boys evidently felt they had been +hardly used, and he could not help agreeing with their silent dissatisfaction. +He could not see either what General Gordon had to do with Livy. He hazarded an +inquiry afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +“Eldridge was dreadfully put out because you asked him what he knew about +General Gordon,” he said to the headmaster, with an attempt at a chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw they’d got to the agrarian laws of Caius Gracchus, and I +wondered if they knew anything about the agrarian troubles in Ireland. But all +they knew about Ireland was that Dublin was on the Liffey. So I wondered if +they’d ever heard of General Gordon.” +</p> + +<p> +Then the horrid fact was disclosed that the new head had a mania for general +information. He had doubts about the utility of examinations on subjects which +had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense. +</p> + +<p> +Sighs grew more worried every month; he could not get the thought out of his +head that Mr. Perkins would ask him to fix a day for his marriage; and he hated +the attitude the head adopted towards classical literature. There was no doubt +that he was a fine scholar, and he was engaged on a work which was quite in the +right tradition: he was writing a treatise on the trees in Latin literature; +but he talked of it flippantly, as though it were a pastime of no great +importance, like billiards, which engaged his leisure but was not to be +considered with seriousness. And Squirts, the master of the Middle Third, grew +more ill-tempered every day. +</p> + +<p> +It was in his form that Philip was put on entering the school. The Rev. B. B. +Gordon was a man by nature ill-suited to be a schoolmaster: he was impatient +and choleric. With no one to call him to account, with only small boys to face +him, he had long lost all power of self-control. He began his work in a rage +and ended it in a passion. He was a man of middle height and of a corpulent +figure; he had sandy hair, worn very short and now growing gray, and a small +bristly moustache. His large face, with indistinct features and small blue +eyes, was naturally red, but during his frequent attacks of anger it grew dark +and purple. His nails were bitten to the quick, for while some trembling boy +was construing he would sit at his desk shaking with the fury that consumed +him, and gnaw his fingers. Stories, perhaps exaggerated, were told of his +violence, and two years before there had been some excitement in the school +when it was heard that one father was threatening a prosecution: he had boxed +the ears of a boy named Walters with a book so violently that his hearing was +affected and the boy had to be taken away from the school. The boy’s +father lived in Tercanbury, and there had been much indignation in the city, +the local paper had referred to the matter; but Mr. Walters was only a brewer, +so the sympathy was divided. The rest of the boys, for reasons best known to +themselves, though they loathed the master, took his side in the affair, and, +to show their indignation that the school’s business had been dealt with +outside, made things as uncomfortable as they could for Walters’ younger +brother, who still remained. But Mr. Gordon had only escaped the country living +by the skin of his teeth, and he had never hit a boy since. The right the +masters possessed to cane boys on the hand was taken away from them, and +Squirts could no longer emphasize his anger by beating his desk with the cane. +He never did more now than take a boy by the shoulders and shake him. He still +made a naughty or refractory lad stand with one arm stretched out for anything +from ten minutes to half an hour, and he was as violent as before with his +tongue. +</p> + +<p> +No master could have been more unfitted to teach things to so shy a boy as +Philip. He had come to the school with fewer terrors than he had when first he +went to Mr. Watson’s. He knew a good many boys who had been with him at +the preparatory school. He felt more grownup, and instinctively realised that +among the larger numbers his deformity would be less noticeable. But from the +first day Mr. Gordon struck terror in his heart; and the master, quick to +discern the boys who were frightened of him, seemed on that account to take a +peculiar dislike to him. Philip had enjoyed his work, but now he began to look +upon the hours passed in school with horror. Rather than risk an answer which +might be wrong and excite a storm of abuse from the master, he would sit +stupidly silent, and when it came towards his turn to stand up and construe he +grew sick and white with apprehension. His happy moments were those when Mr. +Perkins took the form. He was able to gratify the passion for general knowledge +which beset the headmaster; he had read all sorts of strange books beyond his +years, and often Mr. Perkins, when a question was going round the room, would +stop at Philip with a smile that filled the boy with rapture, and say: +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Carey, you tell them.” +</p> + +<p> +The good marks he got on these occasions increased Mr. Gordon’s +indignation. One day it came to Philip’s turn to translate, and the +master sat there glaring at him and furiously biting his thumb. He was in a +ferocious mood. Philip began to speak in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mumble,” shouted the master. +</p> + +<p> +Something seemed to stick in Philip’s throat. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on. Go on. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +Each time the words were screamed more loudly. The effect was to drive all he +knew out of Philip’s head, and he looked at the printed page vacantly. +Mr. Gordon began to breathe heavily. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t know why don’t you say so? Do you know it or +not? Did you hear all this construed last time or not? Why don’t you +speak? Speak, you blockhead, speak!” +</p> + +<p> +The master seized the arms of his chair and grasped them as though to prevent +himself from falling upon Philip. They knew that in past days he often used to +seize boys by the throat till they almost choked. The veins in his forehead +stood out and his face grew dark and threatening. He was a man insane. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had known the passage perfectly the day before, but now he could +remember nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know it,” he gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you know it? Let’s take the words one by one. +We’ll soon see if you don’t know it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip stood silent, very white, trembling a little, with his head bent down on +the book. The master’s breathing grew almost stertorous. +</p> + +<p> +“The headmaster says you’re clever. I don’t know how he sees +it. General information.” He laughed savagely. “I don’t know +what they put you in his form for, Blockhead.” +</p> + +<p> +He was pleased with the word, and he repeated it at the top of his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Blockhead! Blockhead! Club-footed blockhead!” +</p> + +<p> +That relieved him a little. He saw Philip redden suddenly. He told him to fetch +the Black Book. Philip put down his Caesar and went silently out. The Black +Book was a sombre volume in which the names of boys were written with their +misdeeds, and when a name was down three times it meant a caning. Philip went +to the headmaster’s house and knocked at his study-door. Mr. Perkins was +seated at his table. +</p> + +<p> +“May I have the Black Book, please, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“There it is,” answered Mr. Perkins, indicating its place by a nod +of his head. “What have you been doing that you shouldn’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins gave him a quick look, but without answering went on with his work. +Philip took the book and went out. When the hour was up, a few minutes later, +he brought it back. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me have a look at it,” said the headmaster. “I see Mr. +Gordon has black-booked you for ‘gross impertinence.’ What was +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, sir. Mr. Gordon said I was a club-footed +blockhead.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins looked at him again. He wondered whether there was sarcasm behind +the boy’s reply, but he was still much too shaken. His face was white and +his eyes had a look of terrified distress. Mr. Perkins got up and put the book +down. As he did so he took up some photographs. +</p> + +<p> +“A friend of mine sent me some pictures of Athens this morning,” he +said casually. “Look here, there’s the Akropolis.” +</p> + +<p> +He began explaining to Philip what he saw. The ruin grew vivid with his words. +He showed him the theatre of Dionysus and explained in what order the people +sat, and how beyond they could see the blue Aegean. And then suddenly he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I remember Mr. Gordon used to call me a gipsy counter-jumper when I was +in his form.” +</p> + +<p> +And before Philip, his mind fixed on the photographs, had time to gather the +meaning of the remark, Mr. Perkins was showing him a picture of Salamis, and +with his finger, a finger of which the nail had a little black edge to it, was +pointing out how the Greek ships were placed and how the Persian. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XVII</h2> + +<p> +Philip passed the next two years with comfortable monotony. He was not bullied +more than other boys of his size; and his deformity, withdrawing him from +games, acquired for him an insignificance for which he was grateful. He was not +popular, and he was very lonely. He spent a couple of terms with Winks in the +Upper Third. Winks, with his weary manner and his drooping eyelids, looked +infinitely bored. He did his duty, but he did it with an abstracted mind. He +was kind, gentle, and foolish. He had a great belief in the honour of boys; he +felt that the first thing to make them truthful was not to let it enter your +head for a moment that it was possible for them to lie. “Ask much,” +he quoted, “and much shall be given to you.” Life was easy in the +Upper Third. You knew exactly what lines would come to your turn to construe, +and with the crib that passed from hand to hand you could find out all you +wanted in two minutes; you could hold a Latin Grammar open on your knees while +questions were passing round; and Winks never noticed anything odd in the fact +that the same incredible mistake was to be found in a dozen different +exercises. He had no great faith in examinations, for he noticed that boys +never did so well in them as in form: it was disappointing, but not +significant. In due course they were moved up, having learned little but a +cheerful effrontery in the distortion of truth, which was possibly of greater +service to them in after life than an ability to read Latin at sight. +</p> + +<p> +Then they fell into the hands of Tar. His name was Turner; he was the most +vivacious of the old masters, a short man with an immense belly, a black beard +turning now to gray, and a swarthy skin. In his clerical dress there was indeed +something in him to suggest the tar-barrel; and though on principle he gave +five hundred lines to any boy on whose lips he overheard his nickname, at +dinner-parties in the precincts he often made little jokes about it. He was the +most worldly of the masters; he dined out more frequently than any of the +others, and the society he kept was not so exclusively clerical. The boys +looked upon him as rather a dog. He left off his clerical attire during the +holidays and had been seen in Switzerland in gay tweeds. He liked a bottle of +wine and a good dinner, and having once been seen at the Cafe Royal with a lady +who was very probably a near relation, was thenceforward supposed by +generations of schoolboys to indulge in orgies the circumstantial details of +which pointed to an unbounded belief in human depravity. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Turner reckoned that it took him a term to lick boys into shape after they +had been in the Upper Third; and now and then he let fall a sly hint, which +showed that he knew perfectly what went on in his colleague’s form. He +took it good-humouredly. He looked upon boys as young ruffians who were more +apt to be truthful if it was quite certain a lie would be found out, whose +sense of honour was peculiar to themselves and did not apply to dealings with +masters, and who were least likely to be troublesome when they learned that it +did not pay. He was proud of his form and as eager at fifty-five that it should +do better in examinations than any of the others as he had been when he first +came to the school. He had the choler of the obese, easily roused and as easily +calmed, and his boys soon discovered that there was much kindliness beneath the +invective with which he constantly assailed them. He had no patience with +fools, but was willing to take much trouble with boys whom he suspected of +concealing intelligence behind their wilfulness. He was fond of inviting them +to tea; and, though vowing they never got a look in with him at the cakes and +muffins, for it was the fashion to believe that his corpulence pointed to a +voracious appetite, and his voracious appetite to tapeworms, they accepted his +invitations with real pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was now more comfortable, for space was so limited that there were only +studies for boys in the upper school, and till then he had lived in the great +hall in which they all ate and in which the lower forms did preparation in a +promiscuity which was vaguely distasteful to him. Now and then it made him +restless to be with people and he wanted urgently to be alone. He set out for +solitary walks into the country. There was a little stream, with pollards on +both sides of it, that ran through green fields, and it made him happy, he knew +not why, to wander along its banks. When he was tired he lay face-downward on +the grass and watched the eager scurrying of minnows and of tadpoles. It gave +him a peculiar satisfaction to saunter round the precincts. On the green in the +middle they practised at nets in the summer, but during the rest of the year it +was quiet: boys used to wander round sometimes arm in arm, or a studious fellow +with abstracted gaze walked slowly, repeating to himself something he had to +learn by heart. There was a colony of rooks in the great elms, and they filled +the air with melancholy cries. Along one side lay the Cathedral with its great +central tower, and Philip, who knew as yet nothing of beauty, felt when he +looked at it a troubling delight which he could not understand. When he had a +study (it was a little square room looking on a slum, and four boys shared it), +he bought a photograph of that view of the Cathedral, and pinned it up over his +desk. And he found himself taking a new interest in what he saw from the window +of the Fourth Form room. It looked on to old lawns, carefully tended, and fine +trees with foliage dense and rich. It gave him an odd feeling in his heart, and +he did not know if it was pain or pleasure. It was the first dawn of the +aesthetic emotion. It accompanied other changes. His voice broke. It was no +longer quite under his control, and queer sounds issued from his throat. +</p> + +<p> +Then he began to go to the classes which were held in the headmaster’s +study, immediately after tea, to prepare boys for confirmation. Philip’s +piety had not stood the test of time, and he had long since given up his +nightly reading of the Bible; but now, under the influence of Mr. Perkins, with +this new condition of the body which made him so restless, his old feelings +revived, and he reproached himself bitterly for his backsliding. The fires of +Hell burned fiercely before his mind’s eye. If he had died during that +time when he was little better than an infidel he would have been lost; he +believed implicitly in pain everlasting, he believed in it much more than in +eternal happiness; and he shuddered at the dangers he had run. +</p> + +<p> +Since the day on which Mr. Perkins had spoken kindly to him, when he was +smarting under the particular form of abuse which he could least bear, Philip +had conceived for his headmaster a dog-like adoration. He racked his brains +vainly for some way to please him. He treasured the smallest word of +commendation which by chance fell from his lips. And when he came to the quiet +little meetings in his house he was prepared to surrender himself entirely. He +kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Perkins’ shining eyes, and sat with mouth half +open, his head a little thrown forward so as to miss no word. The ordinariness +of the surroundings made the matters they dealt with extraordinarily moving. +And often the master, seized himself by the wonder of his subject, would push +back the book in front of him, and with his hands clasped together over his +heart, as though to still the beating, would talk of the mysteries of their +religion. Sometimes Philip did not understand, but he did not want to +understand, he felt vaguely that it was enough to feel. It seemed to him then +that the headmaster, with his black, straggling hair and his pale face, was +like those prophets of Israel who feared not to take kings to task; and when he +thought of the Redeemer he saw Him only with the same dark eyes and those wan +cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins took this part of his work with great seriousness. There was never +here any of that flashing humour which made the other masters suspect him of +flippancy. Finding time for everything in his busy day, he was able at certain +intervals to take separately for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes the +boys whom he was preparing for confirmation. He wanted to make them feel that +this was the first consciously serious step in their lives; he tried to grope +into the depths of their souls; he wanted to instil in them his own vehement +devotion. In Philip, notwithstanding his shyness, he felt the possibility of a +passion equal to his own. The boy’s temperament seemed to him essentially +religious. One day he broke off suddenly from the subject on which he had been +talking. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you thought at all what you’re going to be when you grow +up?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“My uncle wants me to be ordained,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“And you?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked away. He was ashamed to answer that he felt himself unworthy. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know any life that’s so full of happiness as ours. I +wish I could make you feel what a wonderful privilege it is. One can serve God +in every walk, but we stand nearer to Him. I don’t want to influence you, +but if you made up your mind—oh, at once—you couldn’t help +feeling that joy and relief which never desert one again.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not answer, but the headmaster read in his eyes that he realised +already something of what he tried to indicate. +</p> + +<p> +“If you go on as you are now you’ll find yourself head of the +school one of these days, and you ought to be pretty safe for a scholarship +when you leave. Have you got anything of your own?” +</p> + +<p> +“My uncle says I shall have a hundred a year when I’m +twenty-one.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be rich. I had nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +The headmaster hesitated a moment, and then, idly drawing lines with a pencil +on the blotting paper in front of him, went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid your choice of professions will be rather limited. You +naturally couldn’t go in for anything that required physical +activity.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened to the roots of his hair, as he always did when any reference +was made to his club-foot. Mr. Perkins looked at him gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you’re not oversensitive about your misfortune. Has it +ever struck you to thank God for it?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked up quickly. His lips tightened. He remembered how for months, +trusting in what they told him, he had implored God to heal him as He had +healed the Leper and made the Blind to see. +</p> + +<p> +“As long as you accept it rebelliously it can only cause you shame. But +if you looked upon it as a cross that was given you to bear only because your +shoulders were strong enough to bear it, a sign of God’s favour, then it +would be a source of happiness to you instead of misery.” +</p> + +<p> +He saw that the boy hated to discuss the matter and he let him go. +</p> + +<p> +But Philip thought over all that the headmaster had said, and presently, his +mind taken up entirely with the ceremony that was before him, a mystical +rapture seized him. His spirit seemed to free itself from the bonds of the +flesh and he seemed to be living a new life. He aspired to perfection with all +the passion that was in him. He wanted to surrender himself entirely to the +service of God, and he made up his mind definitely that he would be ordained. +When the great day arrived, his soul deeply moved by all the preparation, by +the books he had studied and above all by the overwhelming influence of the +head, he could hardly contain himself for fear and joy. One thought had +tormented him. He knew that he would have to walk alone through the chancel, +and he dreaded showing his limp thus obviously, not only to the whole school, +who were attending the service, but also to the strangers, people from the city +or parents who had come to see their sons confirmed. But when the time came he +felt suddenly that he could accept the humiliation joyfully; and as he limped +up the chancel, very small and insignificant beneath the lofty vaulting of the +Cathedral, he offered consciously his deformity as a sacrifice to the God who +loved him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XVIII</h2> + +<p> +But Philip could not live long in the rarefied air of the hilltops. What had +happened to him when first he was seized by the religious emotion happened to +him now. Because he felt so keenly the beauty of faith, because the desire for +self-sacrifice burned in his heart with such a gem-like glow, his strength +seemed inadequate to his ambition. He was tired out by the violence of his +passion. His soul was filled on a sudden with a singular aridity. He began to +forget the presence of God which had seemed so surrounding; and his religious +exercises, still very punctually performed, grew merely formal. At first he +blamed himself for this falling away, and the fear of hell-fire urged him to +renewed vehemence; but the passion was dead, and gradually other interests +distracted his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had few friends. His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a +need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless; he +was vain of the wider knowledge he had acquired from the perusal of so many +books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill to hide his contempt for +his companions’ stupidity. They complained that he was conceited; and, +since he excelled only in matters which to them were unimportant, they asked +satirically what he had to be conceited about. He was developing a sense of +humour, and found that he had a knack of saying bitter things, which caught +people on the raw; he said them because they amused him, hardly realising how +much they hurt, and was much offended when he found that his victims regarded +him with active dislike. The humiliations he suffered when first he went to +school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows which he could never +entirely overcome; he remained shy and silent. But though he did everything to +alienate the sympathy of other boys he longed with all his heart for the +popularity which to some was so easily accorded. These from his distance he +admired extravagantly; and though he was inclined to be more sarcastic with +them than with others, though he made little jokes at their expense, he would +have given anything to change places with them. Indeed he would gladly have +changed places with the dullest boy in the school who was whole of limb. He +took to a singular habit. He would imagine that he was some boy whom he had a +particular fancy for; he would throw his soul, as it were, into the +other’s body, talk with his voice and laugh with his heart; he would +imagine himself doing all the things the other did. It was so vivid that he +seemed for a moment really to be no longer himself. In this way he enjoyed many +intervals of fantastic happiness. +</p> + +<p> +At the beginning of the Christmas term which followed on his confirmation +Philip found himself moved into another study. One of the boys who shared it +was called Rose. He was in the same form as Philip, and Philip had always +looked upon him with envious admiration. He was not good-looking; though his +large hands and big bones suggested that he would be a tall man, he was +clumsily made; but his eyes were charming, and when he laughed (he was +constantly laughing) his face wrinkled all round them in a jolly way. He was +neither clever nor stupid, but good enough at his work and better at games. He +was a favourite with masters and boys, and he in his turn liked everyone. +</p> + +<p> +When Philip was put in the study he could not help seeing that the others, who +had been together for three terms, welcomed him coldly. It made him nervous to +feel himself an intruder; but he had learned to hide his feelings, and they +found him quiet and unobtrusive. With Rose, because he was as little able as +anyone else to resist his charm, Philip was even more than usually shy and +abrupt; and whether on account of this, unconsciously bent upon exerting the +fascination he knew was his only by the results, or whether from sheer kindness +of heart, it was Rose who first took Philip into the circle. One day, quite +suddenly, he asked Philip if he would walk to the football field with him. +Philip flushed. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t walk fast enough for you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Rot. Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +And just before they were setting out some boy put his head in the study-door +and asked Rose to go with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” he answered. “I’ve already promised +Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t bother about me,” said Philip quickly. “I +shan’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rot,” said Rose. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Philip with those good-natured eyes of his and laughed. Philip +felt a curious tremor in his heart. +</p> + +<p> +In a little while, their friendship growing with boyish rapidity, the pair were +inseparable. Other fellows wondered at the sudden intimacy, and Rose was asked +what he saw in Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “He’s not half a +bad chap really.” +</p> + +<p> +Soon they grew accustomed to the two walking into chapel arm in arm or +strolling round the precincts in conversation; wherever one was the other could +be found also, and, as though acknowledging his proprietorship, boys who wanted +Rose would leave messages with Carey. Philip at first was reserved. He would +not let himself yield entirely to the proud joy that filled him; but presently +his distrust of the fates gave way before a wild happiness. He thought Rose the +most wonderful fellow he had ever seen. His books now were insignificant; he +could not bother about them when there was something infinitely more important +to occupy him. Rose’s friends used to come in to tea in the study +sometimes or sit about when there was nothing better to do—Rose liked a +crowd and the chance of a rag—and they found that Philip was quite a +decent fellow. Philip was happy. +</p> + +<p> +When the last day of term came he and Rose arranged by which train they should +come back, so that they might meet at the station and have tea in the town +before returning to school. Philip went home with a heavy heart. He thought of +Rose all through the holidays, and his fancy was active with the things they +would do together next term. He was bored at the vicarage, and when on the last +day his uncle put him the usual question in the usual facetious tone: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, are you glad to be going back to school?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip answered joyfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Rather.” +</p> + +<p> +In order to be sure of meeting Rose at the station he took an earlier train +than he usually did, and he waited about the platform for an hour. When the +train came in from Faversham, where he knew Rose had to change, he ran along it +excitedly. But Rose was not there. He got a porter to tell him when another +train was due, and he waited; but again he was disappointed; and he was cold +and hungry, so he walked, through side-streets and slums, by a short cut to the +school. He found Rose in the study, with his feet on the chimney-piece, talking +eighteen to the dozen with half a dozen boys who were sitting on whatever there +was to sit on. He shook hands with Philip enthusiastically, but Philip’s +face fell, for he realised that Rose had forgotten all about their appointment. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, why are you so late?” said Rose. “I thought you were +never coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were at the station at half-past four,” said another boy. +“I saw you when I came.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip blushed a little. He did not want Rose to know that he had been such a +fool as to wait for him. +</p> + +<p> +“I had to see about a friend of my people’s,” he invented +readily. “I was asked to see her off.” +</p> + +<p> +But his disappointment made him a little sulky. He sat in silence, and when +spoken to answered in monosyllables. He was making up his mind to have it out +with Rose when they were alone. But when the others had gone Rose at once came +over and sat on the arm of the chair in which Philip was lounging. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m jolly glad we’re in the same study this term. +Ripping, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed so genuinely pleased to see Philip that Philip’s annoyance +vanished. They began as if they had not been separated for five minutes to talk +eagerly of the thousand things that interested them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XIX</h2> + +<p> +At first Philip had been too grateful for Rose’s friendship to make any +demands on him. He took things as they came and enjoyed life. But presently he +began to resent Rose’s universal amiability; he wanted a more exclusive +attachment, and he claimed as a right what before he had accepted as a favour. +He watched jealously Rose’s companionship with others; and though he knew +it was unreasonable could not help sometimes saying bitter things to him. If +Rose spent an hour playing the fool in another study, Philip would receive him +when he returned to his own with a sullen frown. He would sulk for a day, and +he suffered more because Rose either did not notice his ill-humour or +deliberately ignored it. Not seldom Philip, knowing all the time how stupid he +was, would force a quarrel, and they would not speak to one another for a +couple of days. But Philip could not bear to be angry with him long, and even +when convinced that he was in the right, would apologise humbly. Then for a +week they would be as great friends as ever. But the best was over, and Philip +could see that Rose often walked with him merely from old habit or from fear of +his anger; they had not so much to say to one another as at first, and Rose was +often bored. Philip felt that his lameness began to irritate him. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of the term two or three boys caught scarlet fever, and there +was much talk of sending them all home in order to escape an epidemic; but the +sufferers were isolated, and since no more were attacked it was supposed that +the outbreak was stopped. One of the stricken was Philip. He remained in +hospital through the Easter holidays, and at the beginning of the summer term +was sent home to the vicarage to get a little fresh air. The Vicar, +notwithstanding medical assurance that the boy was no longer infectious, +received him with suspicion; he thought it very inconsiderate of the doctor to +suggest that his nephew’s convalescence should be spent by the seaside, +and consented to have him in the house only because there was nowhere else he +could go. +</p> + +<p> +Philip went back to school at half-term. He had forgotten the quarrels he had +had with Rose, but remembered only that he was his greatest friend. He knew +that he had been silly. He made up his mind to be more reasonable. During his +illness Rose had sent him in a couple of little notes, and he had ended each +with the words: “Hurry up and come back.” Philip thought Rose must +be looking forward as much to his return as he was himself to seeing Rose. +</p> + +<p> +He found that owing to the death from scarlet fever of one of the boys in the +Sixth there had been some shifting in the studies and Rose was no longer in +his. It was a bitter disappointment. But as soon as he arrived he burst into +Rose’s study. Rose was sitting at his desk, working with a boy called +Hunter, and turned round crossly as Philip came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Who the devil’s that?” he cried. And then, seeing Philip: +“Oh, it’s you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip stopped in embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d come in and see how you were.” +</p> + +<p> +“We were just working.” +</p> + +<p> +Hunter broke into the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“When did you get back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Five minutes ago.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat and looked at him as though he was disturbing them. They evidently +expected him to go quickly. Philip reddened. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be off. You might look in when you’ve done,” he +said to Rose. +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip closed the door behind him and limped back to his own study. He felt +frightfully hurt. Rose, far from seeming glad to see him, had looked almost put +out. They might never have been more than acquaintances. Though he waited in +his study, not leaving it for a moment in case just then Rose should come, his +friend never appeared; and next morning when he went in to prayers he saw Rose +and Hunter singing along arm in arm. What he could not see for himself others +told him. He had forgotten that three months is a long time in a +schoolboy’s life, and though he had passed them in solitude Rose had +lived in the world. Hunter had stepped into the vacant place. Philip found that +Rose was quietly avoiding him. But he was not the boy to accept a situation +without putting it into words; he waited till he was sure Rose was alone in his +study and went in. +</p> + +<p> +“May I come in?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Rose looked at him with an embarrassment that made him angry with Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, if you want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very kind of you,” said Philip sarcastically. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you want?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, why have you been so rotten since I came back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t be an ass,” said Rose. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you see in Hunter.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my business.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked down. He could not bring himself to say what was in his heart. He +was afraid of humiliating himself. Rose got up. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got to go to the Gym,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +When he was at the door Philip forced himself to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Rose, don’t be a perfect beast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go to hell.” +</p> + +<p> +Rose slammed the door behind him and left Philip alone. Philip shivered with +rage. He went back to his study and turned the conversation over in his mind. +He hated Rose now, he wanted to hurt him, he thought of biting things he might +have said to him. He brooded over the end to their friendship and fancied that +others were talking of it. In his sensitiveness he saw sneers and wonderings in +other fellows’ manner when they were not bothering their heads with him +at all. He imagined to himself what they were saying. +</p> + +<p> +“After all, it wasn’t likely to last long. I wonder he ever stuck +Carey at all. Blighter!” +</p> + +<p> +To show his indifference he struck up a violent friendship with a boy called +Sharp whom he hated and despised. He was a London boy, with a loutish air, a +heavy fellow with the beginnings of a moustache on his lip and bushy eyebrows +that joined one another across the bridge of his nose. He had soft hands and +manners too suave for his years. He spoke with the suspicion of a cockney +accent. He was one of those boys who are too slack to play games, and he +exercised great ingenuity in making excuses to avoid such as were compulsory. +He was regarded by boys and masters with a vague dislike, and it was from +arrogance that Philip now sought his society. Sharp in a couple of terms was +going to Germany for a year. He hated school, which he looked upon as an +indignity to be endured till he was old enough to go out into the world. London +was all he cared for, and he had many stories to tell of his doings there +during the holidays. From his conversation—he spoke in a soft, deep-toned +voice—there emerged the vague rumour of the London streets by night. +Philip listened to him at once fascinated and repelled. With his vivid fancy he +seemed to see the surging throng round the pit-door of theatres, and the +glitter of cheap restaurants, bars where men, half drunk, sat on high stools +talking with barmaids; and under the street lamps the mysterious passing of +dark crowds bent upon pleasure. Sharp lent him cheap novels from Holywell Row, +which Philip read in his cubicle with a sort of wonderful fear. +</p> + +<p> +Once Rose tried to effect a reconciliation. He was a good-natured fellow, who +did not like having enemies. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Carey, why are you being such a silly ass? It doesn’t do +you any good cutting me and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“You bore me,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Please yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Rose shrugged his shoulders and left him. Philip was very white, as he always +became when he was moved, and his heart beat violently. When Rose went away he +felt suddenly sick with misery. He did not know why he had answered in that +fashion. He would have given anything to be friends with Rose. He hated to have +quarrelled with him, and now that he saw he had given him pain he was very +sorry. But at the moment he had not been master of himself. It seemed that some +devil had seized him, forcing him to say bitter things against his will, even +though at the time he wanted to shake hands with Rose and meet him more than +halfway. The desire to wound had been too strong for him. He had wanted to +revenge himself for the pain and the humiliation he had endured. It was pride: +it was folly too, for he knew that Rose would not care at all, while he would +suffer bitterly. The thought came to him that he would go to Rose, and say: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m sorry I was such a beast. I couldn’t help it. +Let’s make it up.” +</p> + +<p> +But he knew he would never be able to do it. He was afraid that Rose would +sneer at him. He was angry with himself, and when Sharp came in a little while +afterwards he seized upon the first opportunity to quarrel with him. Philip had +a fiendish instinct for discovering other people’s raw spots, and was +able to say things that rankled because they were true. But Sharp had the last +word. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard Rose talking about you to Mellor just now,” he said. +“Mellor said: Why didn’t you kick him? It would teach him manners. +And Rose said: I didn’t like to. Damned cripple.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip suddenly became scarlet. He could not answer, for there was a lump in +his throat that almost choked him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XX</h2> + +<p> +Philip was moved into the Sixth, but he hated school now with all his heart, +and, having lost his ambition, cared nothing whether he did ill or well. He +awoke in the morning with a sinking heart because he must go through another +day of drudgery. He was tired of having to do things because he was told; and +the restrictions irked him, not because they were unreasonable, but because +they were restrictions. He yearned for freedom. He was weary of repeating +things that he knew already and of the hammering away, for the sake of a +thick-witted fellow, at something that he understood from the beginning. +</p> + +<p> +With Mr. Perkins you could work or not as you chose. He was at once eager and +abstracted. The Sixth Form room was in a part of the old abbey which had been +restored, and it had a gothic window: Philip tried to cheat his boredom by +drawing this over and over again; and sometimes out of his head he drew the +great tower of the Cathedral or the gateway that led into the precincts. He had +a knack for drawing. Aunt Louisa during her youth had painted in water colours, +and she had several albums filled with sketches of churches, old bridges, and +picturesque cottages. They were often shown at the vicarage tea-parties. She +had once given Philip a paint-box as a Christmas present, and he had started by +copying her pictures. He copied them better than anyone could have expected, +and presently he did little pictures of his own. Mrs. Carey encouraged him. It +was a good way to keep him out of mischief, and later on his sketches would be +useful for bazaars. Two or three of them had been framed and hung in his +bed-room. +</p> + +<p> +But one day, at the end of the morning’s work, Mr. Perkins stopped him as +he was lounging out of the form-room. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to speak to you, Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip waited. Mr. Perkins ran his lean fingers through his beard and looked at +Philip. He seemed to be thinking over what he wanted to say. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with you, Carey?” he said abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, flushing, looked at him quickly. But knowing him well by now, without +answering, he waited for him to go on. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been dissatisfied with you lately. You’ve been slack +and inattentive. You seem to take no interest in your work. It’s been +slovenly and bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry, sir,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked down sulkily. How could he answer that he was bored to death? +</p> + +<p> +“You know, this term you’ll go down instead of up. I shan’t +give you a very good report.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip wondered what he would say if he knew how the report was treated. It +arrived at breakfast, Mr. Carey glanced at it indifferently, and passed it over +to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s your report. You’d better see what it says,” +he remarked, as he ran his fingers through the wrapper of a catalogue of +second-hand books. +</p> + +<p> +Philip read it. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it good?” asked Aunt Louisa. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so good as I deserve,” answered Philip, with a smile, giving +it to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll read it afterwards when I’ve got my spectacles,” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +But after breakfast Mary Ann came in to say the butcher was there, and she +generally forgot. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m disappointed with you. And I can’t understand. I know +you can do things if you want to, but you don’t seem to want to any more. +I was going to make you a monitor next term, but I think I’d better wait +a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed. He did not like the thought of being passed over. He tightened +his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s something else. You must begin thinking of your +scholarship now. You won’t get anything unless you start working very +seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was irritated by the lecture. He was angry with the headmaster, and +angry with himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I’m going up to Oxford,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? I thought your idea was to be ordained.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve changed my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not answer. Mr. Perkins, holding himself oddly as he always did, +like a figure in one of Perugino’s pictures, drew his fingers +thoughtfully through his beard. He looked at Philip as though he were trying to +understand and then abruptly told him he might go. +</p> + +<p> +Apparently he was not satisfied, for one evening, a week later, when Philip had +to go into his study with some papers, he resumed the conversation; but this +time he adopted a different method: he spoke to Philip not as a schoolmaster +with a boy but as one human being with another. He did not seem to care now +that Philip’s work was poor, that he ran small chance against keen rivals +of carrying off the scholarship necessary for him to go to Oxford: the +important matter was his changed intention about his life afterwards. Mr. +Perkins set himself to revive his eagerness to be ordained. With infinite skill +he worked on his feelings, and this was easier since he was himself genuinely +moved. Philip’s change of mind caused him bitter distress, and he really +thought he was throwing away his chance of happiness in life for he knew not +what. His voice was very persuasive. And Philip, easily moved by the emotion of +others, very emotional himself notwithstanding a placid exterior—his +face, partly by nature but also from the habit of all these years at school, +seldom except by his quick flushing showed what he felt—Philip was deeply +touched by what the master said. He was very grateful to him for the interest +he showed, and he was conscience-stricken by the grief which he felt his +behaviour caused him. It was subtly flattering to know that with the whole +school to think about Mr. Perkins should trouble with him, but at the same time +something else in him, like another person standing at his elbow, clung +desperately to two words. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +He felt himself slipping. He was powerless against the weakness that seemed to +well up in him; it was like the water that rises up in an empty bottle held +over a full basin; and he set his teeth, saying the words over and over to +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +At last Mr. Perkins put his hand on Philip’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to influence you,” he said. “You must +decide for yourself. Pray to Almighty God for help and guidance.” +</p> + +<p> +When Philip came out of the headmaster’s house there was a light rain +falling. He went under the archway that led to the precincts, there was not a +soul there, and the rooks were silent in the elms. He walked round slowly. He +felt hot, and the rain did him good. He thought over all that Mr. Perkins had +said, calmly now that he was withdrawn from the fervour of his personality, and +he was thankful he had not given way. +</p> + +<p> +In the darkness he could but vaguely see the great mass of the Cathedral: he +hated it now because of the irksomeness of the long services which he was +forced to attend. The anthem was interminable, and you had to stand drearily +while it was being sung; you could not hear the droning sermon, and your body +twitched because you had to sit still when you wanted to move about. Then +Philip thought of the two services every Sunday at Blackstable. The church was +bare and cold, and there was a smell all about one of pomade and starched +clothes. The curate preached once and his uncle preached once. As he grew up he +had learned to know his uncle; Philip was downright and intolerant, and he +could not understand that a man might sincerely say things as a clergyman which +he never acted up to as a man. The deception outraged him. His uncle was a weak +and selfish man, whose chief desire it was to be saved trouble. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins had spoken to him of the beauty of a life dedicated to the service +of God. Philip knew what sort of lives the clergy led in the corner of East +Anglia which was his home. There was the Vicar of Whitestone, a parish a little +way from Blackstable: he was a bachelor and to give himself something to do had +lately taken up farming: the local paper constantly reported the cases he had +in the county court against this one and that, labourers he would not pay their +wages to or tradesmen whom he accused of cheating him; scandal said he starved +his cows, and there was much talk about some general action which should be +taken against him. Then there was the Vicar of Ferne, a bearded, fine figure of +a man: his wife had been forced to leave him because of his cruelty, and she +had filled the neighbourhood with stories of his immorality. The Vicar of +Surle, a tiny hamlet by the sea, was to be seen every evening in the public +house a stone’s throw from his vicarage; and the churchwardens had been +to Mr. Carey to ask his advice. There was not a soul for any of them to talk to +except small farmers or fishermen; there were long winter evenings when the +wind blew, whistling drearily through the leafless trees, and all around they +saw nothing but the bare monotony of ploughed fields; and there was poverty, +and there was lack of any work that seemed to matter; every kink in their +characters had free play; there was nothing to restrain them; they grew narrow +and eccentric: Philip knew all this, but in his young intolerance he did not +offer it as an excuse. He shivered at the thought of leading such a life; he +wanted to get out into the world. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXI</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins soon saw that his words had had no effect on Philip, and for the +rest of the term ignored him. He wrote a report which was vitriolic. When it +arrived and Aunt Louisa asked Philip what it was like, he answered cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Rotten.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it?” said the Vicar. “I must look at it again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think there’s any use in my staying on at Tercanbury? I +should have thought it would be better if I went to Germany for a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“What has put that in your head?” said Aunt Louisa. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think it’s rather a good idea?” +</p> + +<p> +Sharp had already left King’s School and had written to Philip from +Hanover. He was really starting life, and it made Philip more restless to think +of it. He felt he could not bear another year of restraint. +</p> + +<p> +“But then you wouldn’t get a scholarship.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t a chance of getting one anyhow. And besides, I +don’t know that I particularly want to go to Oxford.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if you’re going to be ordained, Philip?” Aunt Louisa +exclaimed in dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve given up that idea long ago.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey looked at him with startled eyes, and then, used to self-restraint, +she poured out another cup of tea for his uncle. They did not speak. In a +moment Philip saw tears slowly falling down her cheeks. His heart was suddenly +wrung because he caused her pain. In her tight black dress, made by the +dressmaker down the street, with her wrinkled face and pale tired eyes, her +gray hair still done in the frivolous ringlets of her youth, she was a +ridiculous but strangely pathetic figure. Philip saw it for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards, when the Vicar was shut up in his study with the curate, he put his +arms round her waist. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m sorry you’re upset, Aunt Louisa,” he said. +“But it’s no good my being ordained if I haven’t a real +vocation, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so disappointed, Philip,” she moaned. “I’d +set my heart on it. I thought you could be your uncle’s curate, and then +when our time came—after all, we can’t last for ever, can +we?—you might have taken his place.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shivered. He was seized with panic. His heart beat like a pigeon in a +trap beating with its wings. His aunt wept softly, her head upon his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d persuade Uncle William to let me leave Tercanbury. +I’m so sick of it.” +</p> + +<p> +But the Vicar of Blackstable did not easily alter any arrangements he had made, +and it had always been intended that Philip should stay at King’s School +till he was eighteen, and should then go to Oxford. At all events he would not +hear of Philip leaving then, for no notice had been given and the term’s +fee would have to be paid in any case. +</p> + +<p> +“Then will you give notice for me to leave at Christmas?” said +Philip, at the end of a long and often bitter conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll write to Mr. Perkins about it and see what he says.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wish to goodness I were twenty-one. It is awful to be at somebody +else’s beck and call.” +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, you shouldn’t speak to your uncle like that,” said +Mrs. Carey gently. +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you see that Perkins will want me to stay? He gets so +much a head for every chap in the school.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you want to go to Oxford?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good if I’m not going into the Church?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t go into the Church: you’re in the Church +already,” said the Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +“Ordained then,” replied Philip impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to be, Philip?” asked Mrs. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I’ve not made up my mind. But whatever I am, +it’ll be useful to know foreign languages. I shall get far more out of a +year in Germany than by staying on at that hole.” +</p> + +<p> +He would not say that he felt Oxford would be little better than a continuation +of his life at school. He wished immensely to be his own master. Besides he +would be known to a certain extent among old schoolfellows, and he wanted to +get away from them all. He felt that his life at school had been a failure. He +wanted to start fresh. +</p> + +<p> +It happened that his desire to go to Germany fell in with certain ideas which +had been of late discussed at Blackstable. Sometimes friends came to stay with +the doctor and brought news of the world outside; and the visitors spending +August by the sea had their own way of looking at things. The Vicar had heard +that there were people who did not think the old-fashioned education so useful +nowadays as it had been in the past, and modern languages were gaining an +importance which they had not had in his own youth. His own mind was divided, +for a younger brother of his had been sent to Germany when he failed in some +examination, thus creating a precedent but since he had there died of typhoid +it was impossible to look upon the experiment as other than dangerous. The +result of innumerable conversations was that Philip should go back to +Tercanbury for another term, and then should leave. With this agreement Philip +was not dissatisfied. But when he had been back a few days the headmaster spoke +to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had a letter from your uncle. It appears you want to go to +Germany, and he asks me what I think about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was astounded. He was furious with his guardian for going back on his +word. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was settled, sir,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Far from it. I’ve written to say I think it the greatest mistake +to take you away.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip immediately sat down and wrote a violent letter to his uncle. He did not +measure his language. He was so angry that he could not get to sleep till quite +late that night, and he awoke in the early morning and began brooding over the +way they had treated him. He waited impatiently for an answer. In two or three +days it came. It was a mild, pained letter from Aunt Louisa, saying that he +should not write such things to his uncle, who was very much distressed. He was +unkind and unchristian. He must know they were only trying to do their best for +him, and they were so much older than he that they must be better judges of +what was good for him. Philip clenched his hands. He had heard that statement +so often, and he could not see why it was true; they did not know the +conditions as he did, why should they accept it as self-evident that their +greater age gave them greater wisdom? The letter ended with the information +that Mr. Carey had withdrawn the notice he had given. +</p> + +<p> +Philip nursed his wrath till the next half-holiday. They had them on Tuesdays +and Thursdays, since on Saturday afternoons they had to go to a service in the +Cathedral. He stopped behind when the rest of the Sixth went out. +</p> + +<p> +“May I go to Blackstable this afternoon, please, sir?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the headmaster briefly. +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to see my uncle about something very important.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you hear me say no?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not answer. He went out. He felt almost sick with humiliation, the +humiliation of having to ask and the humiliation of the curt refusal. He hated +the headmaster now. Philip writhed under that despotism which never vouchsafed +a reason for the most tyrannous act. He was too angry to care what he did, and +after dinner walked down to the station, by the back ways he knew so well, just +in time to catch the train to Blackstable. He walked into the vicarage and +found his uncle and aunt sitting in the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Hulloa, where have you sprung from?” said the Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +It was very clear that he was not pleased to see him. He looked a little +uneasy. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d come and see you about my leaving. I want to know +what you mean by promising me one thing when I was here, and doing something +different a week after.” +</p> + +<p> +He was a little frightened at his own boldness, but he had made up his mind +exactly what words to use, and, though his heart beat violently, he forced +himself to say them. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got leave to come here this afternoon?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I asked Perkins and he refused. If you like to write and tell him +I’ve been here you can get me into a really fine old row.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey sat knitting with trembling hands. She was unused to scenes and they +agitated her extremely. +</p> + +<p> +“It would serve you right if I told him,” said Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“If you like to be a perfect sneak you can. After writing to Perkins as +you did you’re quite capable of it.” +</p> + +<p> +It was foolish of Philip to say that, because it gave the Vicar exactly the +opportunity he wanted. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to sit still while you say impertinent things to +me,” he said with dignity. +</p> + +<p> +He got up and walked quickly out of the room into his study. Philip heard him +shut the door and lock it. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wish to God I were twenty-one. It is awful to be tied down like +this.” +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Louisa began to cry quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip, you oughtn’t to have spoken to your uncle like that. +Do please go and tell him you’re sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not in the least sorry. He’s taking a mean advantage. Of +course it’s just waste of money keeping me on at school, but what does he +care? It’s not his money. It was cruel to put me under the guardianship +of people who know nothing about things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip in his voluble anger stopped suddenly at the sound of her voice. It was +heart-broken. He had not realised what bitter things he was saying. +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, how can you be so unkind? You know we are only trying to do our +best for you, and we know that we have no experience; it isn’t as if +we’d had any children of our own: that’s why we consulted Mr. +Perkins.” Her voice broke. “I’ve tried to be like a mother to +you. I’ve loved you as if you were my own son.” +</p> + +<p> +She was so small and frail, there was something so pathetic in her old-maidish +air, that Philip was touched. A great lump came suddenly in his throat and his +eyes filled with tears. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be +beastly.” +</p> + +<p> +He knelt down beside her and took her in his arms, and kissed her wet, withered +cheeks. She sobbed bitterly, and he seemed to feel on a sudden the pity of that +wasted life. She had never surrendered herself before to such a display of +emotion. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I’ve not been what I wanted to be to you, Philip, but I +didn’t know how. It’s been just as dreadful for me to have no +children as for you to have no mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip forgot his anger and his own concerns, but thought only of consoling +her, with broken words and clumsy little caresses. Then the clock struck, and +he had to bolt off at once to catch the only train that would get him back to +Tercanbury in time for call-over. As he sat in the corner of the railway +carriage he saw that he had done nothing. He was angry with himself for his +weakness. It was despicable to have allowed himself to be turned from his +purpose by the pompous airs of the Vicar and the tears of his aunt. But as the +result of he knew not what conversations between the couple another letter was +written to the headmaster. Mr. Perkins read it with an impatient shrug of the +shoulders. He showed it to Philip. It ran: +</p> + +<p> +Dear Mr. Perkins, +</p> + +<p> +Forgive me for troubling you again about my ward, but both his Aunt and I have +been uneasy about him. He seems very anxious to leave school, and his Aunt +thinks he is unhappy. It is very difficult for us to know what to do as we are +not his parents. He does not seem to think he is doing very well and he feels +it is wasting his money to stay on. I should be very much obliged if you would +have a talk to him, and if he is still of the same mind perhaps it would be +better if he left at Christmas as I originally intended. +</p> + +<p> +Yours very truly,<br/> +  William Carey. +</p> + +<p> +Philip gave him back the letter. He felt a thrill of pride in his triumph. He +had got his own way, and he was satisfied. His will had gained a victory over +the wills of others. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not much good my spending half an hour writing to your uncle +if he changes his mind the next letter he gets from you,” said the +headmaster irritably. +</p> + +<p> +Philip said nothing, and his face was perfectly placid; but he could not +prevent the twinkle in his eyes. Mr. Perkins noticed it and broke into a little +laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve rather scored, haven’t you?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Then Philip smiled outright. He could not conceal his exultation. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it true that you’re very anxious to leave?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you unhappy here?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip blushed. He hated instinctively any attempt to get into the depths of +his feelings. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins, slowly dragging his fingers through his beard, looked at him +thoughtfully. He seemed to speak almost to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course schools are made for the average. The holes are all round, and +whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. One hasn’t time +to bother about anything but the average.” Then suddenly he addressed +himself to Philip: “Look here, I’ve got a suggestion to make to +you. It’s getting on towards the end of the term now. Another term +won’t kill you, and if you want to go to Germany you’d better go +after Easter than after Christmas. It’ll be much pleasanter in the spring +than in midwinter. If at the end of the next term you still want to go +I’ll make no objection. What d’you say to that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was so glad to have gained the last three months that he did not mind +the extra term. The school seemed less of a prison when he knew that before +Easter he would be free from it for ever. His heart danced within him. That +evening in chapel he looked round at the boys, standing according to their +forms, each in his due place, and he chuckled with satisfaction at the thought +that soon he would never see them again. It made him regard them almost with a +friendly feeling. His eyes rested on Rose. Rose took his position as a monitor +very seriously: he had quite an idea of being a good influence in the school; +it was his turn to read the lesson that evening, and he read it very well. +Philip smiled when he thought that he would be rid of him for ever, and it +would not matter in six months whether Rose was tall and straight-limbed; and +where would the importance be that he was a monitor and captain of the eleven? +Philip looked at the masters in their gowns. Gordon was dead, he had died of +apoplexy two years before, but all the rest were there. Philip knew now what a +poor lot they were, except Turner perhaps, there was something of a man in him; +and he writhed at the thought of the subjection in which they had held him. In +six months they would not matter either. Their praise would mean nothing to +him, and he would shrug his shoulders at their censure. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had learned not to express his emotions by outward signs, and shyness +still tormented him, but he had often very high spirits; and then, though he +limped about demurely, silent and reserved, it seemed to be hallooing in his +heart. He seemed to himself to walk more lightly. All sorts of ideas danced +through his head, fancies chased one another so furiously that he could not +catch them; but their coming and their going filled him with exhilaration. Now, +being happy, he was able to work, and during the remaining weeks of the term +set himself to make up for his long neglect. His brain worked easily, and he +took a keen pleasure in the activity of his intellect. He did very well in the +examinations that closed the term. Mr. Perkins made only one remark: he was +talking to him about an essay he had written, and, after the usual criticisms, +said: +</p> + +<p> +“So you’ve made up your mind to stop playing the fool for a bit, +have you?” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled at him with his shining teeth, and Philip, looking down, gave an +embarrassed smile. +</p> + +<p> +The half dozen boys who expected to divide between them the various prizes +which were given at the end of the summer term had ceased to look upon Philip +as a serious rival, but now they began to regard him with some uneasiness. He +told no one that he was leaving at Easter and so was in no sense a competitor, +but left them to their anxieties. He knew that Rose flattered himself on his +French, for he had spent two or three holidays in France; and he expected to +get the Dean’s Prize for English essay; Philip got a good deal of +satisfaction in watching his dismay when he saw how much better Philip was +doing in these subjects than himself. Another fellow, Norton, could not go to +Oxford unless he got one of the scholarships at the disposal of the school. He +asked Philip if he was going in for them. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any objection?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +It entertained him to think that he held someone else’s future in his +hand. There was something romantic in getting these various rewards actually in +his grasp, and then leaving them to others because he disdained them. At last +the breaking-up day came, and he went to Mr. Perkins to bid him good-bye. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say you really want to leave?” +</p> + +<p> + Philip’s face fell at the headmaster’s evident surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“You said you wouldn’t put any objection in the way, sir,” he +answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was only a whim that I’d better humour. I know +you’re obstinate and headstrong. What on earth d’you want to leave +for now? You’ve only got another term in any case. You can get the +Magdalen scholarship easily; you’ll get half the prizes we’ve got +to give.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at him sullenly. He felt that he had been tricked; but he had the +promise, and Perkins would have to stand by it. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have a very pleasant time at Oxford. You needn’t +decide at once what you’re going to do afterwards. I wonder if you +realise how delightful the life is up there for anyone who has brains.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve made all my arrangements now to go to Germany, sir,” +said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Are they arrangements that couldn’t possibly be altered?” +asked Mr. Perkins, with his quizzical smile. “I shall be very sorry to +lose you. In schools the rather stupid boys who work always do better than the +clever boy who’s idle, but when the clever boy works—why then, he +does what you’ve done this term.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed darkly. He was unused to compliments, and no one had ever told +him he was clever. The headmaster put his hand on Philip’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, driving things into the heads of thick-witted boys is dull +work, but when now and then you have the chance of teaching a boy who comes +half-way towards you, who understands almost before you’ve got the words +out of your mouth, why, then teaching is the most exhilarating thing in the +world.” Philip was melted by kindness; it had never occurred to him that +it mattered really to Mr. Perkins whether he went or stayed. He was touched and +immensely flattered. It would be pleasant to end up his school-days with glory +and then go to Oxford: in a flash there appeared before him the life which he +had heard described from boys who came back to play in the O.K.S. match or in +letters from the University read out in one of the studies. But he was ashamed; +he would look such a fool in his own eyes if he gave in now; his uncle would +chuckle at the success of the headmaster’s ruse. It was rather a +come-down from the dramatic surrender of all these prizes which were in his +reach, because he disdained to take them, to the plain, ordinary winning of +them. It only required a little more persuasion, just enough to save his +self-respect, and Philip would have done anything that Mr. Perkins wished; but +his face showed nothing of his conflicting emotions. It was placid and sullen. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’d rather go, sir,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Perkins, like many men who manage things by their personal influence, grew +a little impatient when his power was not immediately manifest. He had a great +deal of work to do, and could not waste more time on a boy who seemed to him +insanely obstinate. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, I promised to let you if you really wanted it, and I keep my +promise. When do you go to Germany?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart beat violently. The battle was won, and he did not know +whether he had not rather lost it. +</p> + +<p> +“At the beginning of May, sir,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you must come and see us when you get back.” +</p> + +<p> +He held out his hand. If he had given him one more chance Philip would have +changed his mind, but he seemed to look upon the matter as settled. Philip +walked out of the house. His school-days were over, and he was free; but the +wild exultation to which he had looked forward at that moment was not there. He +walked round the precincts slowly, and a profound depression seized him. He +wished now that he had not been foolish. He did not want to go, but he knew he +could never bring himself to go to the headmaster and tell him he would stay. +That was a humiliation he could never put upon himself. He wondered whether he +had done right. He was dissatisfied with himself and with all his +circumstances. He asked himself dully whether whenever you got your way you +wished afterwards that you hadn’t. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXII</h2> + +<p> +Philip’s uncle had an old friend, called Miss Wilkinson, who lived in +Berlin. She was the daughter of a clergyman, and it was with her father, the +rector of a village in Lincolnshire, that Mr. Carey had spent his last curacy; +on his death, forced to earn her living, she had taken various situations as a +governess in France and Germany. She had kept up a correspondence with Mrs. +Carey, and two or three times had spent her holidays at Blackstable Vicarage, +paying as was usual with the Careys’ unfrequent guests a small sum for +her keep. When it became clear that it was less trouble to yield to +Philip’s wishes than to resist them, Mrs. Carey wrote to ask her for +advice. Miss Wilkinson recommended Heidelberg as an excellent place to learn +German in and the house of Frau Professor Erlin as a comfortable home. Philip +might live there for thirty marks a week, and the Professor himself, a teacher +at the local high school, would instruct him. +</p> + +<p> +Philip arrived in Heidelberg one morning in May. His things were put on a +barrow and he followed the porter out of the station. The sky was bright blue, +and the trees in the avenue through which they passed were thick with leaves; +there was something in the air fresh to Philip, and mingled with the timidity +he felt at entering on a new life, among strangers, was a great exhilaration. +He was a little disconsolate that no one had come to meet him, and felt very +shy when the porter left him at the front door of a big white house. An untidy +lad let him in and took him into a drawing-room. It was filled with a large +suite covered in green velvet, and in the middle was a round table. On this in +water stood a bouquet of flowers tightly packed together in a paper frill like +the bone of a mutton chop, and carefully spaced round it were books in leather +bindings. There was a musty smell. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, with an odour of cooking, the Frau Professor came in, a short, very +stout woman with tightly dressed hair and a red face; she had little eyes, +sparkling like beads, and an effusive manner. She took both Philip’s +hands and asked him about Miss Wilkinson, who had twice spent a few weeks with +her. She spoke in German and in broken English. Philip could not make her +understand that he did not know Miss Wilkinson. Then her two daughters +appeared. They seemed hardly young to Philip, but perhaps they were not more +than twenty-five: the elder, Thekla, was as short as her mother, with the same, +rather shifty air, but with a pretty face and abundant dark hair; Anna, her +younger sister, was tall and plain, but since she had a pleasant smile Philip +immediately preferred her. After a few minutes of polite conversation the Frau +Professor took Philip to his room and left him. It was in a turret, looking +over the tops of the trees in the Anlage; and the bed was in an alcove, so that +when you sat at the desk it had not the look of a bed-room at all. Philip +unpacked his things and set out all his books. He was his own master at last. +</p> + +<p> +A bell summoned him to dinner at one o’clock, and he found the Frau +Professor’s guests assembled in the drawing-room. He was introduced to +her husband, a tall man of middle age with a large fair head, turning now to +gray, and mild blue eyes. He spoke to Philip in correct, rather archaic +English, having learned it from a study of the English classics, not from +conversation; and it was odd to hear him use words colloquially which Philip +had only met in the plays of Shakespeare. Frau Professor Erlin called her +establishment a family and not a pension; but it would have required the +subtlety of a metaphysician to find out exactly where the difference lay. When +they sat down to dinner in a long dark apartment that led out of the +drawing-room, Philip, feeling very shy, saw that there were sixteen people. The +Frau Professor sat at one end and carved. The service was conducted, with a +great clattering of plates, by the same clumsy lout who had opened the door for +him; and though he was quick it happened that the first persons to be served +had finished before the last had received their appointed portions. The Frau +Professor insisted that nothing but German should be spoken, so that Philip, +even if his bashfulness had permitted him to be talkative, was forced to hold +his tongue. He looked at the people among whom he was to live. By the Frau +Professor sat several old ladies, but Philip did not give them much of his +attention. There were two young girls, both fair and one of them very pretty, +whom Philip heard addressed as Fraulein Hedwig and Fraulein Cacilie. Fraulein +Cacilie had a long pig-tail hanging down her back. They sat side by side and +chattered to one another, with smothered laughter: now and then they glanced at +Philip and one of them said something in an undertone; they both giggled, and +Philip blushed awkwardly, feeling that they were making fun of him. Near them +sat a Chinaman, with a yellow face and an expansive smile, who was studying +Western conditions at the University. He spoke so quickly, with a queer accent, +that the girls could not always understand him, and then they burst out +laughing. He laughed too, good-humouredly, and his almond eyes almost closed as +he did so. There were two or three American men, in black coats, rather yellow +and dry of skin: they were theological students; Philip heard the twang of +their New England accent through their bad German, and he glanced at them with +suspicion; for he had been taught to look upon Americans as wild and desperate +barbarians. +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards, when they had sat for a little on the stiff green velvet chairs of +the drawing-room, Fraulein Anna asked Philip if he would like to go for a walk +with them. +</p> + +<p> +Philip accepted the invitation. They were quite a party. There were the two +daughters of the Frau Professor, the two other girls, one of the American +students, and Philip. Philip walked by the side of Anna and Fraulein Hedwig. He +was a little fluttered. He had never known any girls. At Blackstable there were +only the farmers’ daughters and the girls of the local tradesmen. He knew +them by name and by sight, but he was timid, and he thought they laughed at his +deformity. He accepted willingly the difference which the Vicar and Mrs. Carey +put between their own exalted rank and that of the farmers. The doctor had two +daughters, but they were both much older than Philip and had been married to +successive assistants while Philip was still a small boy. At school there had +been two or three girls of more boldness than modesty whom some of the boys +knew; and desperate stories, due in all probability to the masculine +imagination, were told of intrigues with them; but Philip had always concealed +under a lofty contempt the terror with which they filled him. His imagination +and the books he had read had inspired in him a desire for the Byronic +attitude; and he was torn between a morbid self-consciousness and a conviction +that he owed it to himself to be gallant. He felt now that he should be bright +and amusing, but his brain seemed empty and he could not for the life of him +think of anything to say. Fraulein Anna, the Frau Professor’s daughter, +addressed herself to him frequently from a sense of duty, but the other said +little: she looked at him now and then with sparkling eyes, and sometimes to +his confusion laughed outright. Philip felt that she thought him perfectly +ridiculous. They walked along the side of a hill among pine-trees, and their +pleasant odour caused Philip a keen delight. The day was warm and cloudless. At +last they came to an eminence from which they saw the valley of the Rhine +spread out before them under the sun. It was a vast stretch of country, +sparkling with golden light, with cities in the distance; and through it +meandered the silver ribband of the river. Wide spaces are rare in the corner +of Kent which Philip knew, the sea offers the only broad horizon, and the +immense distance he saw now gave him a peculiar, an indescribable thrill. He +felt suddenly elated. Though he did not know it, it was the first time that he +had experienced, quite undiluted with foreign emotions, the sense of beauty. +They sat on a bench, the three of them, for the others had gone on, and while +the girls talked in rapid German, Philip, indifferent to their proximity, +feasted his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, I am happy,” he said to himself unconsciously. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXIII</h2> + +<p> +Philip thought occasionally of the King’s School at Tercanbury, and +laughed to himself as he remembered what at some particular moment of the day +they were doing. Now and then he dreamed that he was there still, and it gave +him an extraordinary satisfaction, on awaking, to realise that he was in his +little room in the turret. From his bed he could see the great cumulus clouds +that hung in the blue sky. He revelled in his freedom. He could go to bed when +he chose and get up when the fancy took him. There was no one to order him +about. It struck him that he need not tell any more lies. +</p> + +<p> +It had been arranged that Professor Erlin should teach him Latin and German; a +Frenchman came every day to give him lessons in French; and the Frau Professor +had recommended for mathematics an Englishman who was taking a philological +degree at the university. This was a man named Wharton. Philip went to him +every morning. He lived in one room on the top floor of a shabby house. It was +dirty and untidy, and it was filled with a pungent odour made up of many +different stinks. He was generally in bed when Philip arrived at ten +o’clock, and he jumped out, put on a filthy dressing-gown and felt +slippers, and, while he gave instruction, ate his simple breakfast. He was a +short man, stout from excessive beer drinking, with a heavy moustache and long, +unkempt hair. He had been in Germany for five years and was become very +Teutonic. He spoke with scorn of Cambridge where he had taken his degree and +with horror of the life which awaited him when, having taken his doctorate in +Heidelberg, he must return to England and a pedagogic career. He adored the +life of the German university with its happy freedom and its jolly +companionships. He was a member of a Burschenschaft, and promised to take +Philip to a Kneipe. He was very poor and made no secret that the lessons he was +giving Philip meant the difference between meat for his dinner and bread and +cheese. Sometimes after a heavy night he had such a headache that he could not +drink his coffee, and he gave his lesson with heaviness of spirit. For these +occasions he kept a few bottles of beer under the bed, and one of these and a +pipe would help him to bear the burden of life. +</p> + +<p> +“A hair of the dog that bit him,” he would say as he poured out the +beer, carefully so that the foam should not make him wait too long to drink. +</p> + +<p> +Then he would talk to Philip of the university, the quarrels between rival +corps, the duels, and the merits of this and that professor. Philip learnt more +of life from him than of mathematics. Sometimes Wharton would sit back with a +laugh and say: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, we’ve not done anything today. You needn’t pay me +for the lesson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +This was something new and very interesting, and he felt that it was of greater +import than trigonometry, which he never could understand. It was like a window +on life that he had a chance of peeping through, and he looked with a wildly +beating heart. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you can keep your dirty money,” said Wharton. +</p> + +<p> +“But how about your dinner?” said Philip, with a smile, for he knew +exactly how his master’s finances stood. +</p> + +<p> +Wharton had even asked him to pay him the two shillings which the lesson cost +once a week rather than once a month, since it made things less complicated. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind my dinner. It won’t be the first time I’ve +dined off a bottle of beer, and my mind’s never clearer than when I +do.” +</p> + +<p> +He dived under the bed (the sheets were gray with want of washing), and fished +out another bottle. Philip, who was young and did not know the good things of +life, refused to share it with him, so he drank alone. +</p> + +<p> +“How long are you going to stay here?” asked Wharton. +</p> + +<p> +Both he and Philip had given up with relief the pretence of mathematics. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose about a year. Then my people want me +to go to Oxford.” +</p> + +<p> +Wharton gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. It was a new experience for +Philip to learn that there were persons who did not look upon that seat of +learning with awe. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you want to go there for? You’ll only be a glorified +schoolboy. Why don’t you matriculate here? A year’s no good. Spend +five years here. You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of +thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do +what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In +Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. +They’re both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of thought. +But in England you get neither: you’re ground down by convention. You +can’t think as you like and you can’t act as you like. That’s +because it’s a democratic nation. I expect America’s worse.” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned back cautiously, for the chair on which he sat had a ricketty leg, +and it was disconcerting when a rhetorical flourish was interrupted by a sudden +fall to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to go back to England this year, but if I can scrape together +enough to keep body and soul on speaking terms I shall stay another twelve +months. But then I shall have to go. And I must leave all this”—he +waved his arm round the dirty garret, with its unmade bed, the clothes lying on +the floor, a row of empty beer bottles against the wall, piles of unbound, +ragged books in every corner—“for some provincial university where +I shall try and get a chair of philology. And I shall play tennis and go to +tea-parties.” He interrupted himself and gave Philip, very neatly +dressed, with a clean collar on and his hair well-brushed, a quizzical look. +“And, my God! I shall have to wash.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened, feeling his own spruceness an intolerable reproach; for of +late he had begun to pay some attention to his toilet, and he had come out from +England with a pretty selection of ties. +</p> + +<p> +The summer came upon the country like a conqueror. Each day was beautiful. The +sky had an arrogant blue which goaded the nerves like a spur. The green of the +trees in the Anlage was violent and crude; and the houses, when the sun caught +them, had a dazzling white which stimulated till it hurt. Sometimes on his way +back from Wharton Philip would sit in the shade on one of the benches in the +Anlage, enjoying the coolness and watching the patterns of light which the sun, +shining through the leaves, made on the ground. His soul danced with delight as +gaily as the sunbeams. He revelled in those moments of idleness stolen from his +work. Sometimes he sauntered through the streets of the old town. He looked +with awe at the students of the corps, their cheeks gashed and red, who +swaggered about in their coloured caps. In the afternoons he wandered about the +hills with the girls in the Frau Professor’s house, and sometimes they +went up the river and had tea in a leafy beer-garden. In the evenings they +walked round and round the Stadtgarten, listening to the band. +</p> + +<p> +Philip soon learned the various interests of the household. Fraulein Thekla, +the professor’s elder daughter, was engaged to a man in England who had +spent twelve months in the house to learn German, and their marriage was to +take place at the end of the year. But the young man wrote that his father, an +india-rubber merchant who lived in Slough, did not approve of the union, and +Fraulein Thekla was often in tears. Sometimes she and her mother might be seen, +with stern eyes and determined mouths, looking over the letters of the +reluctant lover. Thekla painted in water colour, and occasionally she and +Philip, with another of the girls to keep them company, would go out and paint +little pictures. The pretty Fraulein Hedwig had amorous troubles too. She was +the daughter of a merchant in Berlin and a dashing hussar had fallen in love +with her, a von if you please: but his parents opposed a marriage with a person +of her condition, and she had been sent to Heidelberg to forget him. She could +never, never do this, and corresponded with him continually, and he was making +every effort to induce an exasperating father to change his mind. She told all +this to Philip with pretty sighs and becoming blushes, and showed him the +photograph of the gay lieutenant. Philip liked her best of all the girls at the +Frau Professor’s, and on their walks always tried to get by her side. He +blushed a great deal when the others chaffed him for his obvious preference. He +made the first declaration in his life to Fraulein Hedwig, but unfortunately it +was an accident, and it happened in this manner. In the evenings when they did +not go out, the young women sang little songs in the green velvet drawing-room, +while Fraulein Anna, who always made herself useful, industriously accompanied. +Fraulein Hedwig’s favourite song was called Ich liebe dich, I love you; +and one evening after she had sung this, when Philip was standing with her on +the balcony, looking at the stars, it occurred to him to make some remark about +it. He began: +</p> + +<p> +“Ich liebe dich.” +</p> + +<p> +His German was halting, and he looked about for the word he wanted. The pause +was infinitesimal, but before he could go on Fraulein Hedwig said: +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, Herr Carey, Sie mussen mir nicht du sagen—you mustn’t +talk to me in the second person singular.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt himself grow hot all over, for he would never have dared to do +anything so familiar, and he could think of nothing on earth to say. It would +be ungallant to explain that he was not making an observation, but merely +mentioning the title of a song. +</p> + +<p> +“Entschuldigen Sie,” he said. “I beg your pardon.” +</p> + +<p> +“It does not matter,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled pleasantly, quietly took his hand and pressed it, then turned back +into the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +Next day he was so embarrassed that he could not speak to her, and in his +shyness did all that was possible to avoid her. When he was asked to go for the +usual walk he refused because, he said, he had work to do. But Fraulein Hedwig +seized an opportunity to speak to him alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you behaving in this way?” she said kindly. “You +know, I’m not angry with you for what you said last night. You +can’t help it if you love me. I’m flattered. But although I’m +not exactly engaged to Hermann I can never love anyone else, and I look upon +myself as his bride.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip blushed again, but he put on quite the expression of a rejected lover. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll be very happy,” he said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXIV</h2> + +<p> +Professor Erlin gave Philip a lesson every day. He made out a list of books +which Philip was to read till he was ready for the final achievement of Faust, +and meanwhile, ingeniously enough, started him on a German translation of one +of the plays by Shakespeare which Philip had studied at school. It was the +period in Germany of Goethe’s highest fame. Notwithstanding his rather +condescending attitude towards patriotism he had been adopted as the national +poet, and seemed since the war of seventy to be one of the most significant +glories of national unity. The enthusiastic seemed in the wildness of the +Walpurgisnacht to hear the rattle of artillery at Gravelotte. But one mark of a +writer’s greatness is that different minds can find in him different +inspirations; and Professor Erlin, who hated the Prussians, gave his +enthusiastic admiration to Goethe because his works, Olympian and sedate, +offered the only refuge for a sane mind against the onslaughts of the present +generation. There was a dramatist whose name of late had been much heard at +Heidelberg, and the winter before one of his plays had been given at the +theatre amid the cheers of adherents and the hisses of decent people. Philip +heard discussions about it at the Frau Professor’s long table, and at +these Professor Erlin lost his wonted calm: he beat the table with his fist, +and drowned all opposition with the roar of his fine deep voice. It was +nonsense and obscene nonsense. He forced himself to sit the play out, but he +did not know whether he was more bored or nauseated. If that was what the +theatre was coming to, then it was high time the police stepped in and closed +the playhouses. He was no prude and could laugh as well as anyone at the witty +immorality of a farce at the Palais Royal, but here was nothing but filth. With +an emphatic gesture he held his nose and whistled through his teeth. It was the +ruin of the family, the uprooting of morals, the destruction of Germany. +</p> + +<p> +“Aber, Adolf,” said the Frau Professor from the other end of the +table. “Calm yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his fist at her. He was the mildest of creatures and ventured upon no +action of his life without consulting her. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Helene, I tell you this,” he shouted. “I would sooner my +daughters were lying dead at my feet than see them listening to the garbage of +that shameless fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +The play was The Doll’s House and the author was Henrik Ibsen. +</p> + +<p> +Professor Erlin classed him with Richard Wagner, but of him he spoke not with +anger but with good-humoured laughter. He was a charlatan but a successful +charlatan, and in that was always something for the comic spirit to rejoice in. +</p> + +<p> +“Verruckter Kerl! A madman!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He had seen Lohengrin and that passed muster. It was dull but no worse. But +Siegfried! When he mentioned it Professor Erlin leaned his head on his hand and +bellowed with laughter. Not a melody in it from beginning to end! He could +imagine Richard Wagner sitting in his box and laughing till his sides ached at +the sight of all the people who were taking it seriously. It was the greatest +hoax of the nineteenth century. He lifted his glass of beer to his lips, threw +back his head, and drank till the glass was empty. Then wiping his mouth with +the back of his hand, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you young people that before the nineteenth century is out Wagner +will be as dead as mutton. Wagner! I would give all his works for one opera by +Donizetti.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXV</h2> + +<p> +The oddest of Philip’s masters was his teacher of French. Monsieur Ducroz +was a citizen of Geneva. He was a tall old man, with a sallow skin and hollow +cheeks; his gray hair was thin and long. He wore shabby black clothes, with +holes at the elbows of his coat and frayed trousers. His linen was very dirty. +Philip had never seen him in a clean collar. He was a man of few words, who +gave his lesson conscientiously but without enthusiasm, arriving as the clock +struck and leaving on the minute. His charges were very small. He was taciturn, +and what Philip learnt about him he learnt from others: it appeared that he had +fought with Garibaldi against the Pope, but had left Italy in disgust when it +was clear that all his efforts for freedom, by which he meant the establishment +of a republic, tended to no more than an exchange of yokes; he had been +expelled from Geneva for it was not known what political offences. Philip +looked upon him with puzzled surprise; for he was very unlike his idea of the +revolutionary: he spoke in a low voice and was extraordinarily polite; he never +sat down till he was asked to; and when on rare occasions he met Philip in the +street took off his hat with an elaborate gesture; he never laughed, he never +even smiled. A more complete imagination than Philip’s might have +pictured a youth of splendid hope, for he must have been entering upon manhood +in 1848 when kings, remembering their brother of France, went about with an +uneasy crick in their necks; and perhaps that passion for liberty which passed +through Europe, sweeping before it what of absolutism and tyranny had reared +its head during the reaction from the revolution of 1789, filled no breast with +a hotter fire. One might fancy him, passionate with theories of human equality +and human rights, discussing, arguing, fighting behind barricades in Paris, +flying before the Austrian cavalry in Milan, imprisoned here, exiled from +there, hoping on and upborne ever with the word which seemed so magical, the +word Liberty; till at last, broken with disease and starvation, old, without +means to keep body and soul together but such lessons as he could pick up from +poor students, he found himself in that little neat town under the heel of a +personal tyranny greater than any in Europe. Perhaps his taciturnity hid a +contempt for the human race which had abandoned the great dreams of his youth +and now wallowed in sluggish ease; or perhaps these thirty years of revolution +had taught him that men are unfit for liberty, and he thought that he had spent +his life in the pursuit of that which was not worth the finding. Or maybe he +was tired out and waited only with indifference for the release of death. +</p> + +<p> +One day Philip, with the bluntness of his age, asked him if it was true he had +been with Garibaldi. The old man did not seem to attach any importance to the +question. He answered quite quietly in as low a voice as usual. +</p> + +<p> +“Oui, monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“They say you were in the Commune?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do they? Shall we get on with our work?” +</p> + +<p> +He held the book open and Philip, intimidated, began to translate the passage +he had prepared. +</p> + +<p> +One day Monsieur Ducroz seemed to be in great pain. He had been scarcely able +to drag himself up the many stairs to Philip’s room: and when he arrived +sat down heavily, his sallow face drawn, with beads of sweat on his forehead, +trying to recover himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you’re ill,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s of no consequence.” +</p> + +<p> +But Philip saw that he was suffering, and at the end of the hour asked whether +he would not prefer to give no more lessons till he was better. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the old man, in his even low voice. “I prefer to +go on while I am able.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, morbidly nervous when he had to make any reference to money, reddened. +</p> + +<p> +“But it won’t make any difference to you,” he said. +“I’ll pay for the lessons just the same. If you wouldn’t mind +I’d like to give you the money for next week in advance.” +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur Ducroz charged eighteen pence an hour. Philip took a ten-mark piece +out of his pocket and shyly put it on the table. He could not bring himself to +offer it as if the old man were a beggar. +</p> + +<p> +“In that case I think I won’t come again till I’m +better.” He took the coin and, without anything more than the elaborate +bow with which he always took his leave, went out. +</p> + +<p> +“Bonjour, monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was vaguely disappointed. Thinking he had done a generous thing, he had +expected that Monsieur Ducroz would overwhelm him with expressions of +gratitude. He was taken aback to find that the old teacher accepted the present +as though it were his due. He was so young, he did not realise how much less is +the sense of obligation in those who receive favours than in those who grant +them. Monsieur Ducroz appeared again five or six days later. He tottered a +little more and was very weak, but seemed to have overcome the severity of the +attack. He was no more communicative than he had been before. He remained +mysterious, aloof, and dirty. He made no reference to his illness till after +the lesson: and then, just as he was leaving, at the door, which he held open, +he paused. He hesitated, as though to speak were difficult. +</p> + +<p> +“If it hadn’t been for the money you gave me I should have starved. +It was all I had to live on.” +</p> + +<p> +He made his solemn, obsequious bow, and went out. Philip felt a little lump in +his throat. He seemed to realise in a fashion the hopeless bitterness of the +old man’s struggle, and how hard life was for him when to himself it was +so pleasant. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXVI</h2> + +<p> +Philip had spent three months in Heidelberg when one morning the Frau Professor +told him that an Englishman named Hayward was coming to stay in the house, and +the same evening at supper he saw a new face. For some days the family had +lived in a state of excitement. First, as the result of heaven knows what +scheming, by dint of humble prayers and veiled threats, the parents of the +young Englishman to whom Fraulein Thekla was engaged had invited her to visit +them in England, and she had set off with an album of water colours to show how +accomplished she was and a bundle of letters to prove how deeply the young man +had compromised himself. A week later Fraulein Hedwig with radiant smiles +announced that the lieutenant of her affections was coming to Heidelberg with +his father and mother. Exhausted by the importunity of their son and touched by +the dowry which Fraulein Hedwig’s father offered, the lieutenant’s +parents had consented to pass through Heidelberg to make the young +woman’s acquaintance. The interview was satisfactory and Fraulein Hedwig +had the satisfaction of showing her lover in the Stadtgarten to the whole of +Frau Professor Erlin’s household. The silent old ladies who sat at the +top of the table near the Frau Professor were in a flutter, and when Fraulein +Hedwig said she was to go home at once for the formal engagement to take place, +the Frau Professor, regardless of expense, said she would give a Maibowle. +Professor Erlin prided himself on his skill in preparing this mild intoxicant, +and after supper the large bowl of hock and soda, with scented herbs floating +in it and wild strawberries, was placed with solemnity on the round table in +the drawing-room. Fraulein Anna teased Philip about the departure of his +lady-love, and he felt very uncomfortable and rather melancholy. Fraulein +Hedwig sang several songs, Fraulein Anna played the Wedding March, and the +Professor sang Die Wacht am Rhein. Amid all this jollification Philip paid +little attention to the new arrival. They had sat opposite one another at +supper, but Philip was chattering busily with Fraulein Hedwig, and the +stranger, knowing no German, had eaten his food in silence. Philip, observing +that he wore a pale blue tie, had on that account taken a sudden dislike to +him. He was a man of twenty-six, very fair, with long, wavy hair through which +he passed his hand frequently with a careless gesture. His eyes were large and +blue, but the blue was very pale, and they looked rather tired already. He was +clean-shaven, and his mouth, notwithstanding its thin lips, was well-shaped. +Fraulein Anna took an interest in physiognomy, and she made Philip notice +afterwards how finely shaped was his skull, and how weak was the lower part of +his face. The head, she remarked, was the head of a thinker, but the jaw lacked +character. Fraulein Anna, foredoomed to a spinster’s life, with her high +cheek-bones and large misshapen nose, laid great stress upon character. While +they talked of him he stood a little apart from the others, watching the noisy +party with a good-humoured but faintly supercilious expression. He was tall and +slim. He held himself with a deliberate grace. Weeks, one of the American +students, seeing him alone, went up and began to talk to him. The pair were +oddly contrasted: the American very neat in his black coat and pepper-and-salt +trousers, thin and dried-up, with something of ecclesiastical unction already +in his manner; and the Englishman in his loose tweed suit, large-limbed and +slow of gesture. +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not speak to the newcomer till next day. They found themselves alone +on the balcony of the drawing-room before dinner. Hayward addressed him. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re English, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is the food always as bad it was last night?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s always about the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beastly, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beastly.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had found nothing wrong with the food at all, and in fact had eaten it +in large quantities with appetite and enjoyment, but he did not want to show +himself a person of so little discrimination as to think a dinner good which +another thought execrable. +</p> + +<p> +Fraulein Thekla’s visit to England made it necessary for her sister to do +more in the house, and she could not often spare the time for long walks; and +Fraulein Cacilie, with her long plait of fair hair and her little snub-nosed +face, had of late shown a certain disinclination for society. Fraulein Hedwig +was gone, and Weeks, the American who generally accompanied them on their +rambles, had set out for a tour of South Germany. Philip was left a good deal +to himself. Hayward sought his acquaintance; but Philip had an unfortunate +trait: from shyness or from some atavistic inheritance of the cave-dweller, he +always disliked people on first acquaintance; and it was not till he became +used to them that he got over his first impression. It made him difficult of +access. He received Hayward’s advances very shyly, and when Hayward asked +him one day to go for a walk he accepted only because he could not think of a +civil excuse. He made his usual apology, angry with himself for the flushing +cheeks he could not control, and trying to carry it off with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I can’t walk very fast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens, I don’t walk for a wager. I prefer to stroll. +Don’t you remember the chapter in Marius where Pater talks of the gentle +exercise of walking as the best incentive to conversation?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was a good listener; though he often thought of clever things to say, it +was seldom till after the opportunity to say them had passed; but Hayward was +communicative; anyone more experienced than Philip might have thought he liked +to hear himself talk. His supercilious attitude impressed Philip. He could not +help admiring, and yet being awed by, a man who faintly despised so many things +which Philip had looked upon as almost sacred. He cast down the fetish of +exercise, damning with the contemptuous word pot-hunters all those who devoted +themselves to its various forms; and Philip did not realise that he was merely +putting up in its stead the other fetish of culture. +</p> + +<p> +They wandered up to the castle, and sat on the terrace that overlooked the +town. It nestled in the valley along the pleasant Neckar with a comfortable +friendliness. The smoke from the chimneys hung over it, a pale blue haze; and +the tall roofs, the spires of the churches, gave it a pleasantly medieval air. +There was a homeliness in it which warmed the heart. Hayward talked of Richard +Feverel and Madame Bovary, of Verlaine, Dante, and Matthew Arnold. In those +days Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam was known only to the +elect, and Hayward repeated it to Philip. He was very fond of reciting poetry, +his own and that of others, which he did in a monotonous sing-song. By the time +they reached home Philip’s distrust of Hayward was changed to +enthusiastic admiration. +</p> + +<p> +They made a practice of walking together every afternoon, and Philip learned +presently something of Hayward’s circumstances. He was the son of a +country judge, on whose death some time before he had inherited three hundred a +year. His record at Charterhouse was so brilliant that when he went to +Cambridge the Master of Trinity Hall went out of his way to express his +satisfaction that he was going to that college. He prepared himself for a +distinguished career. He moved in the most intellectual circles: he read +Browning with enthusiasm and turned up his well-shaped nose at Tennyson; he +knew all the details of Shelley’s treatment of Harriet; he dabbled in the +history of art (on the walls of his rooms were reproductions of pictures by G. +F. Watts, Burne-Jones, and Botticelli); and he wrote not without distinction +verses of a pessimistic character. His friends told one another that he was a +man of excellent gifts, and he listened to them willingly when they prophesied +his future eminence. In course of time he became an authority on art and +literature. He came under the influence of Newman’s Apologia; the +picturesqueness of the Roman Catholic faith appealed to his esthetic +sensibility; and it was only the fear of his father’s wrath (a plain, +blunt man of narrow ideas, who read Macaulay) which prevented him from +‘going over.’ When he only got a pass degree his friends were +astonished; but he shrugged his shoulders and delicately insinuated that he was +not the dupe of examiners. He made one feel that a first class was ever so +slightly vulgar. He described one of the vivas with tolerant humour; some +fellow in an outrageous collar was asking him questions in logic; it was +infinitely tedious, and suddenly he noticed that he wore elastic-sided boots: +it was grotesque and ridiculous; so he withdrew his mind and thought of the +gothic beauty of the Chapel at King’s. But he had spent some delightful +days at Cambridge; he had given better dinners than anyone he knew; and the +conversation in his rooms had been often memorable. He quoted to Philip the +exquisite epigram: +</p> + +<p> +“They told me, Herakleitus, they told me you were dead.” +</p> + +<p> +And now, when he related again the picturesque little anecdote about the +examiner and his boots, he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it was folly,” he said, “but it was a folly in +which there was something fine.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, with a little thrill, thought it magnificent. +</p> + +<p> +Then Hayward went to London to read for the Bar. He had charming rooms in +Clement’s Inn, with panelled walls, and he tried to make them look like +his old rooms at the Hall. He had ambitions that were vaguely political, he +described himself as a Whig, and he was put up for a club which was of Liberal +but gentlemanly flavour. His idea was to practise at the Bar (he chose the +Chancery side as less brutal), and get a seat for some pleasant constituency as +soon as the various promises made him were carried out; meanwhile he went a +great deal to the opera, and made acquaintance with a small number of charming +people who admired the things that he admired. He joined a dining-club of which +the motto was, The Whole, The Good, and The Beautiful. He formed a platonic +friendship with a lady some years older than himself, who lived in Kensington +Square; and nearly every afternoon he drank tea with her by the light of shaded +candles, and talked of George Meredith and Walter Pater. It was notorious that +any fool could pass the examinations of the Bar Council, and he pursued his +studies in a dilatory fashion. When he was ploughed for his final he looked +upon it as a personal affront. At the same time the lady in Kensington Square +told him that her husband was coming home from India on leave, and was a man, +though worthy in every way, of a commonplace mind, who would not understand a +young man’s frequent visits. Hayward felt that life was full of ugliness, +his soul revolted from the thought of affronting again the cynicism of +examiners, and he saw something rather splendid in kicking away the ball which +lay at his feet. He was also a good deal in debt: it was difficult to live in +London like a gentleman on three hundred a year; and his heart yearned for the +Venice and Florence which John Ruskin had so magically described. He felt that +he was unsuited to the vulgar bustle of the Bar, for he had discovered that it +was not sufficient to put your name on a door to get briefs; and modern +politics seemed to lack nobility. He felt himself a poet. He disposed of his +rooms in Clement’s Inn and went to Italy. He had spent a winter in +Florence and a winter in Rome, and now was passing his second summer abroad in +Germany so that he might read Goethe in the original. +</p> + +<p> +Hayward had one gift which was very precious. He had a real feeling for +literature, and he could impart his own passion with an admirable fluency. He +could throw himself into sympathy with a writer and see all that was best in +him, and then he could talk about him with understanding. Philip had read a +great deal, but he had read without discrimination everything that he happened +to come across, and it was very good for him now to meet someone who could +guide his taste. He borrowed books from the small lending library which the +town possessed and began reading all the wonderful things that Hayward spoke +of. He did not read always with enjoyment but invariably with perseverance. He +was eager for self-improvement. He felt himself very ignorant and very humble. +By the end of August, when Weeks returned from South Germany, Philip was +completely under Hayward’s influence. Hayward did not like Weeks. He +deplored the American’s black coat and pepper-and-salt trousers, and +spoke with a scornful shrug of his New England conscience. Philip listened +complacently to the abuse of a man who had gone out of his way to be kind to +him, but when Weeks in his turn made disagreeable remarks about Hayward he lost +his temper. +</p> + +<p> +“Your new friend looks like a poet,” said Weeks, with a thin smile +on his careworn, bitter mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“He is a poet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he tell you so? In America we should call him a pretty fair specimen +of a waster.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we’re not in America,” said Philip frigidly. +</p> + +<p> +“How old is he? Twenty-five? And he does nothing but stay in pensions and +write poetry.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know him,” said Philip hotly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I do: I’ve met a hundred and forty-seven of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Weeks’ eyes twinkled, but Philip, who did not understand American humour, +pursed his lips and looked severe. Weeks to Philip seemed a man of middle age, +but he was in point of fact little more than thirty. He had a long, thin body +and the scholar’s stoop; his head was large and ugly; he had pale scanty +hair and an earthy skin; his thin mouth and thin, long nose, and the great +protuberance of his frontal bones, gave him an uncouth look. He was cold and +precise in his manner, a bloodless man, without passion; but he had a curious +vein of frivolity which disconcerted the serious-minded among whom his +instincts naturally threw him. He was studying theology in Heidelberg, but the +other theological students of his own nationality looked upon him with +suspicion. He was very unorthodox, which frightened them; and his freakish +humour excited their disapproval. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you have known a hundred and forty-seven of him?” asked +Philip seriously. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve met him in the Latin Quarter in Paris, and I’ve met him +in pensions in Berlin and Munich. He lives in small hotels in Perugia and +Assisi. He stands by the dozen before the Botticellis in Florence, and he sits +on all the benches of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In Italy he drinks a little +too much wine, and in Germany he drinks a great deal too much beer. He always +admires the right thing whatever the right thing is, and one of these days +he’s going to write a great work. Think of it, there are a hundred and +forty-seven great works reposing in the bosoms of a hundred and forty-seven +great men, and the tragic thing is that not one of those hundred and +forty-seven great works will ever be written. And yet the world goes on.” +</p> + +<p> +Weeks spoke seriously, but his gray eyes twinkled a little at the end of his +long speech, and Philip flushed when he saw that the American was making fun of +him. +</p> + +<p> +“You do talk rot,” he said crossly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXVII</h2> + +<p> +Weeks had two little rooms at the back of Frau Erlin’s house, and one of +them, arranged as a parlour, was comfortable enough for him to invite people to +sit in. After supper, urged perhaps by the impish humour which was the despair +of his friends in Cambridge, Mass., he often asked Philip and Hayward to come +in for a chat. He received them with elaborate courtesy and insisted on their +sitting in the only two comfortable chairs in the room. Though he did not drink +himself, with a politeness of which Philip recognised the irony, he put a +couple of bottles of beer at Hayward’s elbow, and he insisted on lighting +matches whenever in the heat of argument Hayward’s pipe went out. At the +beginning of their acquaintance Hayward, as a member of so celebrated a +university, had adopted a patronising attitude towards Weeks, who was a +graduate of Harvard; and when by chance the conversation turned upon the Greek +tragedians, a subject upon which Hayward felt he spoke with authority, he had +assumed the air that it was his part to give information rather than to +exchange ideas. Weeks had listened politely, with smiling modesty, till Hayward +finished; then he asked one or two insidious questions, so innocent in +appearance that Hayward, not seeing into what a quandary they led him, answered +blandly; Weeks made a courteous objection, then a correction of fact, after +that a quotation from some little known Latin commentator, then a reference to +a German authority; and the fact was disclosed that he was a scholar. With +smiling ease, apologetically, Weeks tore to pieces all that Hayward had said; +with elaborate civility he displayed the superficiality of his attainments. He +mocked him with gentle irony. Philip could not help seeing that Hayward looked +a perfect fool, and Hayward had not the sense to hold his tongue; in his +irritation, his self-assurance undaunted, he attempted to argue: he made wild +statements and Weeks amicably corrected them; he reasoned falsely and Weeks +proved that he was absurd: Weeks confessed that he had taught Greek Literature +at Harvard. Hayward gave a laugh of scorn. +</p> + +<p> +“I might have known it. Of course you read Greek like a +schoolmaster,” he said. “I read it like a poet.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do you find it more poetic when you don’t quite know what it +means? I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation +improved the sense.” +</p> + +<p> +At last, having finished the beer, Hayward left Weeks’ room hot and +dishevelled; with an angry gesture he said to Philip: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course the man’s a pedant. He has no real feeling for beauty. +Accuracy is the virtue of clerks. It’s the spirit of the Greeks that we +aim at. Weeks is like that fellow who went to hear Rubenstein and complained +that he played false notes. False notes! What did they matter when he played +divinely?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, not knowing how many incompetent people have found solace in these +false notes, was much impressed. +</p> + +<p> +Hayward could never resist the opportunity which Weeks offered him of regaining +ground lost on a previous occasion, and Weeks was able with the greatest ease +to draw him into a discussion. Though he could not help seeing how small his +attainments were beside the American’s, his British pertinacity, his +wounded vanity (perhaps they are the same thing), would not allow him to give +up the struggle. Hayward seemed to take a delight in displaying his ignorance, +self-satisfaction, and wrongheadedness. Whenever Hayward said something which +was illogical, Weeks in a few words would show the falseness of his reasoning, +pause for a moment to enjoy his triumph, and then hurry on to another subject +as though Christian charity impelled him to spare the vanquished foe. Philip +tried sometimes to put in something to help his friend, and Weeks gently +crushed him, but so kindly, differently from the way in which he answered +Hayward, that even Philip, outrageously sensitive, could not feel hurt. Now and +then, losing his calm as he felt himself more and more foolish, Hayward became +abusive, and only the American’s smiling politeness prevented the +argument from degenerating into a quarrel. On these occasions when Hayward left +Weeks’ room he muttered angrily: +</p> + +<p> +“Damned Yankee!” +</p> + +<p> +That settled it. It was a perfect answer to an argument which had seemed +unanswerable. +</p> + +<p> +Though they began by discussing all manner of subjects in Weeks’ little +room eventually the conversation always turned to religion: the theological +student took a professional interest in it, and Hayward welcomed a subject in +which hard facts need not disconcert him; when feeling is the gauge you can +snap your angers at logic, and when your logic is weak that is very agreeable. +Hayward found it difficult to explain his beliefs to Philip without a great +flow of words; but it was clear (and this fell in with Philip’s idea of +the natural order of things), that he had been brought up in the church by law +established. Though he had now given up all idea of becoming a Roman Catholic, +he still looked upon that communion with sympathy. He had much to say in its +praise, and he compared favourably its gorgeous ceremonies with the simple +services of the Church of England. He gave Philip Newman’s Apologia to +read, and Philip, finding it very dull, nevertheless read it to the end. +</p> + +<p> +“Read it for its style, not for its matter,” said Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +He talked enthusiastically of the music at the Oratory, and said charming +things about the connection between incense and the devotional spirit. Weeks +listened to him with his frigid smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You think it proves the truth of Roman Catholicism that John Henry +Newman wrote good English and that Cardinal Manning has a picturesque +appearance?” +</p> + +<p> +Hayward hinted that he had gone through much trouble with his soul. For a year +he had swum in a sea of darkness. He passed his fingers through his fair, +waving hair and told them that he would not for five hundred pounds endure +again those agonies of mind. Fortunately he had reached calm waters at last. +</p> + +<p> +“But what do you believe?” asked Philip, who was never satisfied +with vague statements. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe in the Whole, the Good, and the Beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +Hayward with his loose large limbs and the fine carriage of his head looked +very handsome when he said this, and he said it with an air. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that how you would describe your religion in a census paper?” +asked Weeks, in mild tones. +</p> + +<p> +“I hate the rigid definition: it’s so ugly, so obvious. If you like +I will say that I believe in the church of the Duke of Wellington and Mr. +Gladstone.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the Church of England,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh wise young man!” retorted Hayward, with a smile which made +Philip blush, for he felt that in putting into plain words what the other had +expressed in a paraphrase, he had been guilty of vulgarity. “I belong to +the Church of England. But I love the gold and the silk which clothe the priest +of Rome, and his celibacy, and the confessional, and purgatory: and in the +darkness of an Italian cathedral, incense-laden and mysterious, I believe with +all my heart in the miracle of the Mass. In Venice I have seen a fisherwoman +come in, barefoot, throw down her basket of fish by her side, fall on her +knees, and pray to the Madonna; and that I felt was the real faith, and I +prayed and believed with her. But I believe also in Aphrodite and Apollo and +the Great God Pan.” +</p> + +<p> +He had a charming voice, and he chose his words as he spoke; he uttered them +almost rhythmically. He would have gone on, but Weeks opened a second bottle of +beer. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me give you something to drink.” +</p> + +<p> +Hayward turned to Philip with the slightly condescending gesture which so +impressed the youth. +</p> + +<p> +“Now are you satisfied?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, somewhat bewildered, confessed that he was. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m disappointed that you didn’t add a little +Buddhism,” said Weeks. “And I confess I have a sort of sympathy for +Mahomet; I regret that you should have left him out in the cold.” +</p> + +<p> +Hayward laughed, for he was in a good humour with himself that evening, and the +ring of his sentences still sounded pleasant in his ears. He emptied his glass. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t expect you to understand me,” he answered. +“With your cold American intelligence you can only adopt the critical +attitude. Emerson and all that sort of thing. But what is criticism? Criticism +is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up. You +are a pedant, my dear fellow. The important thing is to construct: I am +constructive; I am a poet.” +</p> + +<p> +Weeks looked at him with eyes which seemed at the same time to be quite grave +and yet to be smiling brightly. +</p> + +<p> +“I think, if you don’t mind my saying so, you’re a little +drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing to speak of,” answered Hayward cheerfully. “And not +enough for me to be unable to overwhelm you in argument. But come, I have +unbosomed my soul; now tell us what your religion is.” +</p> + +<p> +Weeks put his head on one side so that he looked like a sparrow on a perch. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been trying to find that out for years. I think I’m a +Unitarian.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s a dissenter,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He could not imagine why they both burst into laughter, Hayward uproariously, +and Weeks with a funny chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“And in England dissenters aren’t gentlemen, are they?” asked +Weeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you ask me point-blank, they’re not,” replied +Philip rather crossly. +</p> + +<p> +He hated being laughed at, and they laughed again. +</p> + +<p> +“And will you tell me what a gentleman is?” asked Weeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know; everyone knows what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you a gentleman?” +</p> + +<p> +No doubt had ever crossed Philip’s mind on the subject, but he knew it +was not a thing to state of oneself. +</p> + +<p> +“If a man tells you he’s a gentleman you can bet your boots he +isn’t,” he retorted. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I a gentleman?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s truthfulness made it difficult for him to answer, but he was +naturally polite. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, you’re different,” he said. “You’re +American, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose we may take it that only Englishmen are gentlemen,” said +Weeks gravely. +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not contradict him. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t you give me a few more particulars?” asked Weeks. +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened, but, growing angry, did not care if he made himself +ridiculous. +</p> + +<p> +“I can give you plenty.” He remembered his uncle’s saying +that it took three generations to make a gentleman: it was a companion proverb +to the silk purse and the sow’s ear. “First of all he’s the +son of a gentleman, and he’s been to a public school, and to Oxford or +Cambridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Edinburgh wouldn’t do, I suppose?” asked Weeks. +</p> + +<p> +“And he talks English like a gentleman, and he wears the right sort of +things, and if he’s a gentleman he can always tell if another +chap’s a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed rather lame to Philip as he went on, but there it was: that was what +he meant by the word, and everyone he had ever known had meant that too. +</p> + +<p> +“It is evident to me that I am not a gentleman,” said Weeks. +“I don’t see why you should have been so surprised because I was a +dissenter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite know what a Unitarian is,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Weeks in his odd way again put his head on one side: you almost expected him to +twitter. +</p> + +<p> +“A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody +else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn’t +quite know what.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why you should make fun of me,” said Philip. +“I really want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear friend, I’m not making fun of you. I have arrived at that +definition after years of great labour and the most anxious, nerve-racking +study.” +</p> + +<p> +When Philip and Hayward got up to go, Weeks handed Philip a little book in a +paper cover. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you can read French pretty well by now. I wonder if this would +amuse you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thanked him and, taking the book, looked at the title. It was +Renan’s Vie de Jesus. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXVIII</h2> + +<p> +It occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the conversations which helped +them to pass an idle evening were being turned over afterwards in +Philip’s active brain. It had never struck him before that religion was a +matter upon which discussion was possible. To him it meant the Church of +England, and not to believe in its tenets was a sign of wilfulness which could +not fail of punishment here or hereafter. There was some doubt in his mind +about the chastisement of unbelievers. It was possible that a merciful judge, +reserving the flames of hell for the heathen—Mahommedans, Buddhists, and +the rest—would spare Dissenters and Roman Catholics (though at the cost +of how much humiliation when they were made to realise their error!), and it +was also possible that He would be pitiful to those who had had no chance of +learning the truth,—this was reasonable enough, though such were the +activities of the Missionary Society there could not be many in this +condition—but if the chance had been theirs and they had neglected it (in +which category were obviously Roman Catholics and Dissenters), the punishment +was sure and merited. It was clear that the miscreant was in a parlous state. +Perhaps Philip had not been taught it in so many words, but certainly the +impression had been given him that only members of the Church of England had +any real hope of eternal happiness. +</p> + +<p> +One of the things that Philip had heard definitely stated was that the +unbeliever was a wicked and a vicious man; but Weeks, though he believed in +hardly anything that Philip believed, led a life of Christian purity. Philip +had received little kindness in his life, and he was touched by the +American’s desire to help him: once when a cold kept him in bed for three +days, Weeks nursed him like a mother. There was neither vice nor wickedness in +him, but only sincerity and loving-kindness. It was evidently possible to be +virtuous and unbelieving. +</p> + +<p> +Also Philip had been given to understand that people adhered to other faiths +only from obstinacy or self-interest: in their hearts they knew they were +false; they deliberately sought to deceive others. Now, for the sake of his +German he had been accustomed on Sunday mornings to attend the Lutheran +service, but when Hayward arrived he began instead to go with him to Mass. He +noticed that, whereas the Protestant church was nearly empty and the +congregation had a listless air, the Jesuit on the other hand was crowded and +the worshippers seemed to pray with all their hearts. They had not the look of +hypocrites. He was surprised at the contrast; for he knew of course that the +Lutherans, whose faith was closer to that of the Church of England, on that +account were nearer the truth than the Roman Catholics. Most of the +men—it was largely a masculine congregation—were South Germans; and +he could not help saying to himself that if he had been born in South Germany +he would certainly have been a Roman Catholic. He might just as well have been +born in a Roman Catholic country as in England; and in England as well in a +Wesleyan, Baptist, or Methodist family as in one that fortunately belonged to +the church by law established. He was a little breathless at the danger he had +run. Philip was on friendly terms with the little Chinaman who sat at table +with him twice each day. His name was Sung. He was always smiling, affable, and +polite. It seemed strange that he should frizzle in hell merely because he was +a Chinaman; but if salvation was possible whatever a man’s faith was, +there did not seem to be any particular advantage in belonging to the Church of +England. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, more puzzled than he had ever been in his life, sounded Weeks. He had +to be careful, for he was very sensitive to ridicule; and the acidulous humour +with which the American treated the Church of England disconcerted him. Weeks +only puzzled him more. He made Philip acknowledge that those South Germans whom +he saw in the Jesuit church were every bit as firmly convinced of the truth of +Roman Catholicism as he was of that of the Church of England, and from that he +led him to admit that the Mahommedan and the Buddhist were convinced also of +the truth of their respective religions. It looked as though knowing that you +were right meant nothing; they all knew they were right. Weeks had no intention +of undermining the boy’s faith, but he was deeply interested in religion, +and found it an absorbing topic of conversation. He had described his own views +accurately when he said that he very earnestly disbelieved in almost everything +that other people believed. Once Philip asked him a question, which he had +heard his uncle put when the conversation at the vicarage had fallen upon some +mildly rationalistic work which was then exciting discussion in the newspapers. +</p> + +<p> +“But why should you be right and all those fellows like St. Anselm and +St. Augustine be wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that they were very clever and learned men, while you have +grave doubts whether I am either?” asked Weeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered Philip uncertainly, for put in that way his +question seemed impertinent. +</p> + +<p> +“St. Augustine believed that the earth was flat and that the sun turned +round it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what that proves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it proves that you believe with your generation. Your saints lived +in an age of faith, when it was practically impossible to disbelieve what to us +is positively incredible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then how d’you know that we have the truth now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought this over for a moment, then he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why the things we believe absolutely now +shouldn’t be just as wrong as what they believed in the past.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither do I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then how can you believe anything at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip asked Weeks what he thought of Hayward’s religion. +</p> + +<p> +“Men have always formed gods in their own image,” said Weeks. +“He believes in the picturesque.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip paused for a little while, then he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why one should believe in God at all.” +</p> + +<p> +The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he realised that he had ceased +to do so. It took his breath away like a plunge into cold water. He looked at +Weeks with startled eyes. Suddenly he felt afraid. He left Weeks as quickly as +he could. He wanted to be alone. It was the most startling experience that he +had ever had. He tried to think it all out; it was very exciting, since his +whole life seemed concerned (he thought his decision on this matter must +profoundly affect its course) and a mistake might lead to eternal damnation; +but the more he reflected the more convinced he was; and though during the next +few weeks he read books, aids to scepticism, with eager interest it was only to +confirm him in what he felt instinctively. The fact was that he had ceased to +believe not for this reason or the other, but because he had not the religious +temperament. Faith had been forced upon him from the outside. It was a matter +of environment and example. A new environment and a new example gave him the +opportunity to find himself. He put off the faith of his childhood quite +simply, like a cloak that he no longer needed. At first life seemed strange and +lonely without the belief which, though he never realised it, had been an +unfailing support. He felt like a man who has leaned on a stick and finds +himself forced suddenly to walk without assistance. It really seemed as though +the days were colder and the nights more solitary. But he was upheld by the +excitement; it seemed to make life a more thrilling adventure; and in a little +while the stick which he had thrown aside, the cloak which had fallen from his +shoulders, seemed an intolerable burden of which he had been eased. The +religious exercises which for so many years had been forced upon him were part +and parcel of religion to him. He thought of the collects and epistles which he +had been made to learn by heart, and the long services at the Cathedral through +which he had sat when every limb itched with the desire for movement; and he +remembered those walks at night through muddy roads to the parish church at +Blackstable, and the coldness of that bleak building; he sat with his feet like +ice, his fingers numb and heavy, and all around was the sickly odour of +pomatum. Oh, he had been so bored! His heart leaped when he saw he was free +from all that. +</p> + +<p> +He was surprised at himself because he ceased to believe so easily, and, not +knowing that he felt as he did on account of the subtle workings of his inmost +nature, he ascribed the certainty he had reached to his own cleverness. He was +unduly pleased with himself. With youth’s lack of sympathy for an +attitude other than its own he despised not a little Weeks and Hayward because +they were content with the vague emotion which they called God and would not +take the further step which to himself seemed so obvious. One day he went alone +up a certain hill so that he might see a view which, he knew not why, filled +him always with wild exhilaration. It was autumn now, but often the days were +cloudless still, and then the sky seemed to glow with a more splendid light: it +was as though nature consciously sought to put a fuller vehemence into the +remaining days of fair weather. He looked down upon the plain, a-quiver with +the sun, stretching vastly before him: in the distance were the roofs of +Mannheim and ever so far away the dimness of Worms. Here and there a more +piercing glitter was the Rhine. The tremendous spaciousness of it was glowing +with rich gold. Philip, as he stood there, his heart beating with sheer joy, +thought how the tempter had stood with Jesus on a high mountain and shown him +the kingdoms of the earth. To Philip, intoxicated with the beauty of the scene, +it seemed that it was the whole world which was spread before him, and he was +eager to step down and enjoy it. He was free from degrading fears and free from +prejudice. He could go his way without the intolerable dread of hell-fire. +Suddenly he realised that he had lost also that burden of responsibility which +made every action of his life a matter of urgent consequence. He could breathe +more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things +he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously +he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him. +</p> + +<p> +Drunk with pride in his intelligence and in his fearlessness, Philip entered +deliberately upon a new life. But his loss of faith made less difference in his +behaviour than he expected. Though he had thrown on one side the Christian +dogmas it never occurred to him to criticise the Christian ethics; he accepted +the Christian virtues, and indeed thought it fine to practise them for their +own sake, without a thought of reward or punishment. There was small occasion +for heroism in the Frau Professor’s house, but he was a little more +exactly truthful than he had been, and he forced himself to be more than +commonly attentive to the dull, elderly ladies who sometimes engaged him in +conversation. The gentle oath, the violent adjective, which are typical of our +language and which he had cultivated before as a sign of manliness, he now +elaborately eschewed. +</p> + +<p> +Having settled the whole matter to his satisfaction he sought to put it out of +his mind, but that was more easily said than done; and he could not prevent the +regrets nor stifle the misgivings which sometimes tormented him. He was so +young and had so few friends that immortality had no particular attractions for +him, and he was able without trouble to give up belief in it; but there was one +thing which made him wretched; he told himself that he was unreasonable, he +tried to laugh himself out of such pathos; but the tears really came to his +eyes when he thought that he would never see again the beautiful mother whose +love for him had grown more precious as the years since her death passed on. +And sometimes, as though the influence of innumerable ancestors, Godfearing and +devout, were working in him unconsciously, there seized him a panic fear that +perhaps after all it was all true, and there was, up there behind the blue sky, +a jealous God who would punish in everlasting flames the atheist. At these +times his reason could offer him no help, he imagined the anguish of a physical +torment which would last endlessly, he felt quite sick with fear and burst into +a violent sweat. At last he would say to himself desperately: +</p> + +<p> +“After all, it’s not my fault. I can’t force myself to +believe. If there is a God after all and he punishes me because I honestly +don’t believe in Him I can’t help it.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXIX</h2> + +<p> +Winter set in. Weeks went to Berlin to attend the lectures of Paulssen, and +Hayward began to think of going South. The local theatre opened its doors. +Philip and Hayward went to it two or three times a week with the praiseworthy +intention of improving their German, and Philip found it a more diverting +manner of perfecting himself in the language than listening to sermons. They +found themselves in the midst of a revival of the drama. Several of +Ibsen’s plays were on the repertory for the winter; Sudermann’s Die +Ehre was then a new play, and on its production in the quiet university town +caused the greatest excitement; it was extravagantly praised and bitterly +attacked; other dramatists followed with plays written under the modern +influence, and Philip witnessed a series of works in which the vileness of +mankind was displayed before him. He had never been to a play in his life till +then (poor touring companies sometimes came to the Assembly Rooms at +Blackstable, but the Vicar, partly on account of his profession, partly because +he thought it would be vulgar, never went to see them) and the passion of the +stage seized him. He felt a thrill the moment he got into the little, shabby, +ill-lit theatre. Soon he came to know the peculiarities of the small company, +and by the casting could tell at once what were the characteristics of the +persons in the drama; but this made no difference to him. To him it was real +life. It was a strange life, dark and tortured, in which men and women showed +to remorseless eyes the evil that was in their hearts: a fair face concealed a +depraved mind; the virtuous used virtue as a mask to hide their secret vice, +the seeming-strong fainted within with their weakness; the honest were corrupt, +the chaste were lewd. You seemed to dwell in a room where the night before an +orgy had taken place: the windows had not been opened in the morning; the air +was foul with the dregs of beer, and stale smoke, and flaring gas. There was no +laughter. At most you sniggered at the hypocrite or the fool: the characters +expressed themselves in cruel words that seemed wrung out of their hearts by +shame and anguish. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was carried away by the sordid intensity of it. He seemed to see the +world again in another fashion, and this world too he was anxious to know. +After the play was over he went to a tavern and sat in the bright warmth with +Hayward to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of beer. All round were little +groups of students, talking and laughing; and here and there was a family, +father and mother, a couple of sons and a girl; and sometimes the girl said a +sharp thing, and the father leaned back in his chair and laughed, laughed +heartily. It was very friendly and innocent. There was a pleasant homeliness in +the scene, but for this Philip had no eyes. His thoughts ran on the play he had +just come from. +</p> + +<p> +“You do feel it’s life, don’t you?” he said excitedly. +“You know, I don’t think I can stay here much longer. I want to get +to London so that I can really begin. I want to have experiences. I’m so +tired of preparing for life: I want to live it now.” +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes Hayward left Philip to go home by himself. He would never exactly +reply to Philip’s eager questioning, but with a merry, rather stupid +laugh, hinted at a romantic amour; he quoted a few lines of Rossetti, and once +showed Philip a sonnet in which passion and purple, pessimism and pathos, were +packed together on the subject of a young lady called Trude. Hayward surrounded +his sordid and vulgar little adventures with a glow of poetry, and thought he +touched hands with Pericles and Pheidias because to describe the object of his +attentions he used the word hetaira instead of one of those, more blunt and +apt, provided by the English language. Philip in the daytime had been led by +curiosity to pass through the little street near the old bridge, with its neat +white houses and green shutters, in which according to Hayward the Fraulein +Trude lived; but the women, with brutal faces and painted cheeks, who came out +of their doors and cried out to him, filled him with fear; and he fled in +horror from the rough hands that sought to detain him. He yearned above all +things for experience and felt himself ridiculous because at his age he had not +enjoyed that which all fiction taught him was the most important thing in life; +but he had the unfortunate gift of seeing things as they were, and the reality +which was offered him differed too terribly from the ideal of his dreams. +</p> + +<p> +He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed +before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an +illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the +young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which +have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real +they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; +for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the +conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze +of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for +themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, +lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of +life. The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter +disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him +which is stronger than himself. The companionship of Hayward was the worst +possible thing for Philip. He was a man who saw nothing for himself, but only +through a literary atmosphere, and he was dangerous because he had deceived +himself into sincerity. He honestly mistook his sensuality for romantic +emotion, his vacillation for the artistic temperament, and his idleness for +philosophic calm. His mind, vulgar in its effort at refinement, saw everything +a little larger than life size, with the outlines blurred, in a golden mist of +sentimentality. He lied and never knew that he lied, and when it was pointed +out to him said that lies were beautiful. He was an idealist. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXX</h2> + +<p> +Philip was restless and dissatisfied. Hayward’s poetic allusions troubled +his imagination, and his soul yearned for romance. At least that was how he put +it to himself. +</p> + +<p> +And it happened that an incident was taking place in Frau Erlin’s house +which increased Philip’s preoccupation with the matter of sex. Two or +three times on his walks among the hills he had met Fraulein Cacilie wandering +by herself. He had passed her with a bow, and a few yards further on had seen +the Chinaman. He thought nothing of it; but one evening on his way home, when +night had already fallen, he passed two people walking very close together. +Hearing his footstep, they separated quickly, and though he could not see well +in the darkness he was almost certain they were Cacilie and Herr Sung. Their +rapid movement apart suggested that they had been walking arm in arm. Philip +was puzzled and surprised. He had never paid much attention to Fraulein +Cacilie. She was a plain girl, with a square face and blunt features. She could +not have been more than sixteen, since she still wore her long fair hair in a +plait. That evening at supper he looked at her curiously; and, though of late +she had talked little at meals, she addressed him. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you go for your walk today, Herr Carey?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I walked up towards the Konigstuhl.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t go out,” she volunteered. “I had a +headache.” +</p> + +<p> +The Chinaman, who sat next to her, turned round. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I hope it’s better +now.” +</p> + +<p> +Fraulein Cacilie was evidently uneasy, for she spoke again to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you meet many people on the way?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip could not help reddening when he told a downright lie. +</p> + +<p> +“No. I don’t think I saw a living soul.” +</p> + +<p> +He fancied that a look of relief passed across her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Soon, however, there could be no doubt that there was something between the +pair, and other people in the Frau Professor’s house saw them lurking in +dark places. The elderly ladies who sat at the head of the table began to +discuss what was now a scandal. The Frau Professor was angry and harassed. She +had done her best to see nothing. The winter was at hand, and it was not as +easy a matter then as in the summer to keep her house full. Herr Sung was a +good customer: he had two rooms on the ground floor, and he drank a bottle of +Moselle at each meal. The Frau Professor charged him three marks a bottle and +made a good profit. None of her other guests drank wine, and some of them did +not even drink beer. Neither did she wish to lose Fraulein Cacilie, whose +parents were in business in South America and paid well for the Frau +Professor’s motherly care; and she knew that if she wrote to the +girl’s uncle, who lived in Berlin, he would immediately take her away. +The Frau Professor contented herself with giving them both severe looks at +table and, though she dared not be rude to the Chinaman, got a certain +satisfaction out of incivility to Cacilie. But the three elderly ladies were +not content. Two were widows, and one, a Dutchwoman, was a spinster of +masculine appearance; they paid the smallest possible sum for their pension, +and gave a good deal of trouble, but they were permanent and therefore had to +be put up with. They went to the Frau Professor and said that something must be +done; it was disgraceful, and the house was ceasing to be respectable. The Frau +Professor tried obstinacy, anger, tears, but the three old ladies routed her, +and with a sudden assumption of virtuous indignation she said that she would +put a stop to the whole thing. +</p> + +<p> +After luncheon she took Cacilie into her bed-room and began to talk very +seriously to her; but to her amazement the girl adopted a brazen attitude; she +proposed to go about as she liked; and if she chose to walk with the Chinaman +she could not see it was anybody’s business but her own. The Frau +Professor threatened to write to her uncle. +</p> + +<p> +“Then Onkel Heinrich will put me in a family in Berlin for the winter, +and that will be much nicer for me. And Herr Sung will come to Berlin +too.” +</p> + +<p> +The Frau Professor began to cry. The tears rolled down her coarse, red, fat +cheeks; and Cacilie laughed at her. +</p> + +<p> +“That will mean three rooms empty all through the winter,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +Then the Frau Professor tried another plan. She appealed to Fraulein +Cacilie’s better nature: she was kind, sensible, tolerant; she treated +her no longer as a child, but as a grown woman. She said that it wouldn’t +be so dreadful, but a Chinaman, with his yellow skin and flat nose, and his +little pig’s eyes! That’s what made it so horrible. It filled one +with disgust to think of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Bitte, bitte,” said Cacilie, with a rapid intake of the breath. +“I won’t listen to anything against him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s not serious?” gasped Frau Erlin. +</p> + +<p> +“I love him. I love him. I love him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gott im Himmel!” +</p> + +<p> +The Frau Professor stared at her with horrified surprise; she had thought it +was no more than naughtiness on the child’s part, and innocent, folly. +but the passion in her voice revealed everything. Cacilie looked at her for a +moment with flaming eyes, and then with a shrug of her shoulders went out of +the room. +</p> + +<p> +Frau Erlin kept the details of the interview to herself, and a day or two later +altered the arrangement of the table. She asked Herr Sung if he would not come +and sit at her end, and he with his unfailing politeness accepted with +alacrity. Cacilie took the change indifferently. But as if the discovery that +the relations between them were known to the whole household made them more +shameless, they made no secret now of their walks together, and every afternoon +quite openly set out to wander about the hills. It was plain that they did not +care what was said of them. At last even the placidity of Professor Erlin was +moved, and he insisted that his wife should speak to the Chinaman. She took him +aside in his turn and expostulated; he was ruining the girl’s reputation, +he was doing harm to the house, he must see how wrong and wicked his conduct +was; but she was met with smiling denials; Herr Sung did not know what she was +talking about, he was not paying any attention to Fraulein Cacilie, he never +walked with her; it was all untrue, every word of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, Herr Sung, how can you say such things? You’ve been seen +again and again.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you’re mistaken. It’s untrue.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her with an unceasing smile, which showed his even, little white +teeth. He was quite calm. He denied everything. He denied with bland +effrontery. At last the Frau Professor lost her temper and said the girl had +confessed she loved him. He was not moved. He continued to smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! Nonsense! It’s all untrue.” +</p> + +<p> +She could get nothing out of him. The weather grew very bad; there was snow and +frost, and then a thaw with a long succession of cheerless days, on which +walking was a poor amusement. One evening when Philip had just finished his +German lesson with the Herr Professor and was standing for a moment in the +drawing-room, talking to Frau Erlin, Anna came quickly in. +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma, where is Cacilie?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose she’s in her room.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no light in it.” +</p> + +<p> +The Frau Professor gave an exclamation, and she looked at her daughter in +dismay. The thought which was in Anna’s head had flashed across hers. +</p> + +<p> +“Ring for Emil,” she said hoarsely. +</p> + +<p> +This was the stupid lout who waited at table and did most of the housework. He +came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Emil, go down to Herr Sung’s room and enter without knocking. If +anyone is there say you came in to see about the stove.” +</p> + +<p> +No sign of astonishment appeared on Emil’s phlegmatic face. +</p> + +<p> +He went slowly downstairs. The Frau Professor and Anna left the door open and +listened. Presently they heard Emil come up again, and they called him. +</p> + +<p> +“Was anyone there?” asked the Frau Professor. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Herr Sung was there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was he alone?” +</p> + +<p> +The beginning of a cunning smile narrowed his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Fraulein Cacilie was there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s disgraceful,” cried the Frau Professor. +</p> + +<p> +Now he smiled broadly. +</p> + +<p> +“Fraulein Cacilie is there every evening. She spends hours at a time +there.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Professor began to wring her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how abominable! But why didn’t you tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was no business of mine,” he answered, slowly shrugging his +shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose they paid you well. Go away. Go.” +</p> + +<p> +He lurched clumsily to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“They must go away, mamma,” said Anna. +</p> + +<p> +“And who is going to pay the rent? And the taxes are falling due. +It’s all very well for you to say they must go away. If they go away I +can’t pay the bills.” She turned to Philip, with tears streaming +down her face. “Ach, Herr Carey, you will not say what you have heard. If +Fraulein Forster—” this was the Dutch spinster—“if +Fraulein Forster knew she would leave at once. And if they all go we must close +the house. I cannot afford to keep it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I won’t say anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“If she stays, I will not speak to her,” said Anna. +</p> + +<p> +That evening at supper Fraulein Cacilie, redder than usual, with a look of +obstinacy on her face, took her place punctually; but Herr Sung did not appear, +and for a while Philip thought he was going to shirk the ordeal. At last he +came, very smiling, his little eyes dancing with the apologies he made for his +late arrival. He insisted as usual on pouring out the Frau Professor a glass of +his Moselle, and he offered a glass to Fraulein Forster. The room was very hot, +for the stove had been alight all day and the windows were seldom opened. Emil +blundered about, but succeeded somehow in serving everyone quickly and with +order. The three old ladies sat in silence, visibly disapproving: the Frau +Professor had scarcely recovered from her tears; her husband was silent and +oppressed. Conversation languished. It seemed to Philip that there was +something dreadful in that gathering which he had sat with so often; they +looked different under the light of the two hanging lamps from what they had +ever looked before; he was vaguely uneasy. Once he caught Cacilie’s eye, +and he thought she looked at him with hatred and contempt. The room was +stifling. It was as though the beastly passion of that pair troubled them all; +there was a feeling of Oriental depravity; a faint savour of joss-sticks, a +mystery of hidden vices, seemed to make their breath heavy. Philip could feel +the beating of the arteries in his forehead. He could not understand what +strange emotion distracted him; he seemed to feel something infinitely +attractive, and yet he was repelled and horrified. +</p> + +<p> +For several days things went on. The air was sickly with the unnatural passion +which all felt about them, and the nerves of the little household seemed to +grow exasperated. Only Herr Sung remained unaffected; he was no less smiling, +affable, and polite than he had been before: one could not tell whether his +manner was a triumph of civilisation or an expression of contempt on the part +of the Oriental for the vanquished West. Cacilie was flaunting and cynical. At +last even the Frau Professor could bear the position no longer. Suddenly panic +seized her; for Professor Erlin with brutal frankness had suggested the +possible consequences of an intrigue which was now manifest to everyone, and +she saw her good name in Heidelberg and the repute of her house ruined by a +scandal which could not possibly be hidden. For some reason, blinded perhaps by +her interests, this possibility had never occurred to her; and now, her wits +muddled by a terrible fear, she could hardly be prevented from turning the girl +out of the house at once. It was due to Anna’s good sense that a cautious +letter was written to the uncle in Berlin suggesting that Cacilie should be +taken away. +</p> + +<p> +But having made up her mind to lose the two lodgers, the Frau Professor could +not resist the satisfaction of giving rein to the ill-temper she had curbed so +long. She was free now to say anything she liked to Cacilie. +</p> + +<p> +“I have written to your uncle, Cacilie, to take you away. I cannot have +you in my house any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +Her little round eyes sparkled when she noticed the sudden whiteness of the +girl’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re shameless. Shameless,” she went on. +</p> + +<p> +She called her foul names. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you say to my uncle Heinrich, Frau Professor?” the girl +asked, suddenly falling from her attitude of flaunting independence. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’ll tell you himself. I expect to get a letter from him +tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Next day, in order to make the humiliation more public, at supper she called +down the table to Cacilie. +</p> + +<p> +“I have had a letter from your uncle, Cacilie. You are to pack your +things tonight, and we will put you in the train tomorrow morning. He will meet +you himself in Berlin at the Central Bahnhof.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, Frau Professor.” +</p> + +<p> +Herr Sung smiled in the Frau Professor’s eyes, and notwithstanding her +protests insisted on pouring out a glass of wine for her. The Frau Professor +ate her supper with a good appetite. But she had triumphed unwisely. Just +before going to bed she called the servant. +</p> + +<p> +“Emil, if Fraulein Cacilie’s box is ready you had better take it +downstairs tonight. The porter will fetch it before breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +The servant went away and in a moment came back. +</p> + +<p> +“Fraulein Cacilie is not in her room, and her bag has gone.” +</p> + +<p> +With a cry the Frau Professor hurried along: the box was on the floor, strapped +and locked; but there was no bag, and neither hat nor cloak. The dressing-table +was empty. Breathing heavily, the Frau Professor ran downstairs to the +Chinaman’s rooms, she had not moved so quickly for twenty years, and Emil +called out after her to beware she did not fall; she did not trouble to knock, +but burst in. The rooms were empty. The luggage had gone, and the door into the +garden, still open, showed how it had been got away. In an envelope on the +table were notes for the money due on the month’s board and an +approximate sum for extras. Groaning, suddenly overcome by her haste, the Frau +Professor sank obesely on to a sofa. There could be no doubt. The pair had gone +off together. Emil remained stolid and unmoved. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXI</h2> + +<p> +Hayward, after saying for a month that he was going South next day and delaying +from week to week out of inability to make up his mind to the bother of packing +and the tedium of a journey, had at last been driven off just before Christmas +by the preparations for that festival. He could not support the thought of a +Teutonic merry-making. It gave him goose-flesh to think of the season’s +aggressive cheerfulness, and in his desire to avoid the obvious he determined +to travel on Christmas Eve. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was not sorry to see him off, for he was a downright person and it +irritated him that anybody should not know his own mind. Though much under +Hayward’s influence, he would not grant that indecision pointed to a +charming sensitiveness; and he resented the shadow of a sneer with which +Hayward looked upon his straight ways. They corresponded. Hayward was an +admirable letter-writer, and knowing his talent took pains with his letters. +His temperament was receptive to the beautiful influences with which he came in +contact, and he was able in his letters from Rome to put a subtle fragrance of +Italy. He thought the city of the ancient Romans a little vulgar, finding +distinction only in the decadence of the Empire; but the Rome of the Popes +appealed to his sympathy, and in his chosen words, quite exquisitely, there +appeared a rococo beauty. He wrote of old church music and the Alban Hills, and +of the languor of incense and the charm of the streets by night, in the rain, +when the pavements shone and the light of the street lamps was mysterious. +Perhaps he repeated these admirable letters to various friends. He did not know +what a troubling effect they had upon Philip; they seemed to make his life very +humdrum. With the spring Hayward grew dithyrambic. He proposed that Philip +should come down to Italy. He was wasting his time at Heidelberg. The Germans +were gross and life there was common; how could the soul come to her own in +that prim landscape? In Tuscany the spring was scattering flowers through the +land, and Philip was nineteen; let him come and they could wander through the +mountain towns of Umbria. Their names sang in Philip’s heart. And Cacilie +too, with her lover, had gone to Italy. When he thought of them Philip was +seized with a restlessness he could not account for. He cursed his fate because +he had no money to travel, and he knew his uncle would not send him more than +the fifteen pounds a month which had been agreed upon. He had not managed his +allowance very well. His pension and the price of his lessons left him very +little over, and he had found going about with Hayward expensive. Hayward had +often suggested excursions, a visit to the play, or a bottle of wine, when +Philip had come to the end of his month’s money; and with the folly of +his age he had been unwilling to confess he could not afford an extravagance. +</p> + +<p> +Luckily Hayward’s letters came seldom, and in the intervals Philip +settled down again to his industrious life. He had matriculated at the +university and attended one or two courses of lectures. Kuno Fischer was then +at the height of his fame and during the winter had been lecturing brilliantly +on Schopenhauer. It was Philip’s introduction to philosophy. He had a +practical mind and moved uneasily amid the abstract; but he found an unexpected +fascination in listening to metaphysical disquisitions; they made him +breathless; it was a little like watching a tight-rope dancer doing perilous +feats over an abyss; but it was very exciting. The pessimism of the subject +attracted his youth; and he believed that the world he was about to enter was a +place of pitiless woe and of darkness. That made him none the less eager to +enter it; and when, in due course, Mrs. Carey, acting as the correspondent for +his guardian’s views, suggested that it was time for him to come back to +England, he agreed with enthusiasm. He must make up his mind now what he meant +to do. If he left Heidelberg at the end of July they could talk things over +during August, and it would be a good time to make arrangements. +</p> + +<p> +The date of his departure was settled, and Mrs. Carey wrote to him again. She +reminded him of Miss Wilkinson, through whose kindness he had gone to Frau +Erlin’s house at Heidelberg, and told him that she had arranged to spend +a few weeks with them at Blackstable. She would be crossing from Flushing on +such and such a day, and if he travelled at the same time he could look after +her and come on to Blackstable in her company. Philip’s shyness +immediately made him write to say that he could not leave till a day or two +afterwards. He pictured himself looking out for Miss Wilkinson, the +embarrassment of going up to her and asking if it were she (and he might so +easily address the wrong person and be snubbed), and then the difficulty of +knowing whether in the train he ought to talk to her or whether he could ignore +her and read his book. +</p> + +<p> +At last he left Heidelberg. For three months he had been thinking of nothing +but the future; and he went without regret. He never knew that he had been +happy there. Fraulein Anna gave him a copy of Der Trompeter von Sackingen and +in return he presented her with a volume of William Morris. Very wisely neither +of them ever read the other’s present. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXII</h2> + +<p> +Philip was surprised when he saw his uncle and aunt. He had never noticed +before that they were quite old people. The Vicar received him with his usual, +not unamiable indifference. He was a little stouter, a little balder, a little +grayer. Philip saw how insignificant he was. His face was weak and +self-indulgent. Aunt Louisa took him in her arms and kissed him; and tears of +happiness flowed down her cheeks. Philip was touched and embarrassed; he had +not known with what a hungry love she cared for him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the time has seemed long since you’ve been away, +Philip,” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +She stroked his hands and looked into his face with glad eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve grown. You’re quite a man now.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a very small moustache on his upper lip. He had bought a razor and +now and then with infinite care shaved the down off his smooth chin. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve been so lonely without you.” And then shyly, with a +little break in her voice, she asked: “You are glad to come back to your +home, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, rather.” +</p> + +<p> +She was so thin that she seemed almost transparent, the arms she put round his +neck were frail bones that reminded you of chicken bones, and her faded face +was oh! so wrinkled. The gray curls which she still wore in the fashion of her +youth gave her a queer, pathetic look; and her little withered body was like an +autumn leaf, you felt it might be blown away by the first sharp wind. Philip +realised that they had done with life, these two quiet little people: they +belonged to a past generation, and they were waiting there patiently, rather +stupidly, for death; and he, in his vigour and his youth, thirsting for +excitement and adventure, was appalled at the waste. They had done nothing, and +when they went it would be just as if they had never been. He felt a great pity +for Aunt Louisa, and he loved her suddenly because she loved him. +</p> + +<p> +Then Miss Wilkinson, who had kept discreetly out of the way till the Careys had +had a chance of welcoming their nephew, came into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Miss Wilkinson, Philip,” said Mrs. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“The prodigal has returned,” she said, holding out her hand. +“I have brought a rose for the prodigal’s buttonhole.” +</p> + +<p> +With a gay smile she pinned to Philip’s coat the flower she had just +picked in the garden. He blushed and felt foolish. He knew that Miss Wilkinson +was the daughter of his Uncle William’s last rector, and he had a wide +acquaintance with the daughters of clergymen. They wore ill-cut clothes and +stout boots. They were generally dressed in black, for in Philip’s early +years at Blackstable homespuns had not reached East Anglia, and the ladies of +the clergy did not favour colours. Their hair was done very untidily, and they +smelt aggressively of starched linen. They considered the feminine graces +unbecoming and looked the same whether they were old or young. They bore their +religion arrogantly. The closeness of their connection with the church made +them adopt a slightly dictatorial attitude to the rest of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson was very different. She wore a white muslin gown stamped with +gay little bunches of flowers, and pointed, high-heeled shoes, with open-work +stockings. To Philip’s inexperience it seemed that she was wonderfully +dressed; he did not see that her frock was cheap and showy. Her hair was +elaborately dressed, with a neat curl in the middle of the forehead: it was +very black, shiny and hard, and it looked as though it could never be in the +least disarranged. She had large black eyes and her nose was slightly aquiline; +in profile she had somewhat the look of a bird of prey, but full face she was +prepossessing. She smiled a great deal, but her mouth was large and when she +smiled she tried to hide her teeth, which were big and rather yellow. But what +embarrassed Philip most was that she was heavily powdered: he had very strict +views on feminine behaviour and did not think a lady ever powdered; but of +course Miss Wilkinson was a lady because she was a clergyman’s daughter, +and a clergyman was a gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +Philip made up his mind to dislike her thoroughly. She spoke with a slight +French accent; and he did not know why she should, since she had been born and +bred in the heart of England. He thought her smile affected, and the coy +sprightliness of her manner irritated him. For two or three days he remained +silent and hostile, but Miss Wilkinson apparently did not notice it. She was +very affable. She addressed her conversation almost exclusively to him, and +there was something flattering in the way she appealed constantly to his sane +judgment. She made him laugh too, and Philip could never resist people who +amused him: he had a gift now and then of saying neat things; and it was +pleasant to have an appreciative listener. Neither the Vicar nor Mrs. Carey had +a sense of humour, and they never laughed at anything he said. As he grew used +to Miss Wilkinson, and his shyness left him, he began to like her better; he +found the French accent picturesque; and at a garden party which the doctor +gave she was very much better dressed than anyone else. She wore a blue foulard +with large white spots, and Philip was tickled at the sensation it caused. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m certain they think you’re no better than you should +be,” he told her, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the dream of my life to be taken for an abandoned +hussy,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +One day when Miss Wilkinson was in her room he asked Aunt Louisa how old she +was. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear, you should never ask a lady’s age; but she’s +certainly too old for you to marry.” +</p> + +<p> +The Vicar gave his slow, obese smile. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s no chicken, Louisa,” he said. “She was nearly +grown up when we were in Lincolnshire, and that was twenty years ago. She wore +a pigtail hanging down her back.” +</p> + +<p> +“She may not have been more than ten,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“She was older than that,” said Aunt Louisa. +</p> + +<p> +“I think she was near twenty,” said the Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, William. Sixteen or seventeen at the outside.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would make her well over thirty,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment Miss Wilkinson tripped downstairs, singing a song by Benjamin +Goddard. She had put her hat on, for she and Philip were going for a walk, and +she held out her hand for him to button her glove. He did it awkwardly. He felt +embarrassed but gallant. Conversation went easily between them now, and as they +strolled along they talked of all manner of things. She told Philip about +Berlin, and he told her of his year in Heidelberg. As he spoke, things which +had appeared of no importance gained a new interest: he described the people at +Frau Erlin’s house; and to the conversations between Hayward and Weeks, +which at the time seemed so significant, he gave a little twist, so that they +looked absurd. He was flattered at Miss Wilkinson’s laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m quite frightened of you,” she said. “You’re +so sarcastic.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she asked him playfully whether he had not had any love affairs at +Heidelberg. Without thinking, he frankly answered that he had not; but she +refused to believe him. +</p> + +<p> +“How secretive you are!” she said. “At your age is it +likely?” +</p> + +<p> +He blushed and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“You want to know too much,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I thought so,” she laughed triumphantly. “Look at him +blushing.” +</p> + +<p> +He was pleased that she should think he had been a sad dog, and he changed the +conversation so as to make her believe he had all sorts of romantic things to +conceal. He was angry with himself that he had not. There had been no +opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson was dissatisfied with her lot. She resented having to earn her +living and told Philip a long story of an uncle of her mother’s, who had +been expected to leave her a fortune but had married his cook and changed his +will. She hinted at the luxury of her home and compared her life in +Lincolnshire, with horses to ride and carriages to drive in, with the mean +dependence of her present state. Philip was a little puzzled when he mentioned +this afterwards to Aunt Louisa, and she told him that when she knew the +Wilkinsons they had never had anything more than a pony and a dog-cart; Aunt +Louisa had heard of the rich uncle, but as he was married and had children +before Emily was born she could never have had much hope of inheriting his +fortune. Miss Wilkinson had little good to say of Berlin, where she was now in +a situation. She complained of the vulgarity of German life, and compared it +bitterly with the brilliance of Paris, where she had spent a number of years. +She did not say how many. She had been governess in the family of a fashionable +portrait-painter, who had married a Jewish wife of means, and in their house +she had met many distinguished people. She dazzled Philip with their names. +Actors from the Comedie Francaise had come to the house frequently, and +Coquelin, sitting next her at dinner, had told her he had never met a foreigner +who spoke such perfect French. Alphonse Daudet had come also, and he had given +her a copy of Sappho: he had promised to write her name in it, but she had +forgotten to remind him. She treasured the volume none the less and she would +lend it to Philip. Then there was Maupassant. Miss Wilkinson with a rippling +laugh looked at Philip knowingly. What a man, but what a writer! Hayward had +talked of Maupassant, and his reputation was not unknown to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Did he make love to you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +The words seemed to stick funnily in his throat, but he asked them +nevertheless. He liked Miss Wilkinson very much now, and was thrilled by her +conversation, but he could not imagine anyone making love to her. +</p> + +<p> +“What a question!” she cried. “Poor Guy, he made love to +every woman he met. It was a habit that he could not break himself of.” +</p> + +<p> +She sighed a little, and seemed to look back tenderly on the past. +</p> + +<p> +“He was a charming man,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +A greater experience than Philip’s would have guessed from these words +the probabilities of the encounter: the distinguished writer invited to +luncheon en famille, the governess coming in sedately with the two tall girls +she was teaching; the introduction: +</p> + +<p> +“Notre Miss Anglaise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle.” +</p> + +<p> +And the luncheon during which the Miss Anglaise sat silent while the +distinguished writer talked to his host and hostess. +</p> + +<p> +But to Philip her words called up much more romantic fancies. +</p> + +<p> +“Do tell me all about him,” he said excitedly. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing to tell,” she said truthfully, but in such a +manner as to convey that three volumes would scarcely have contained the lurid +facts. “You mustn’t be curious.” +</p> + +<p> +She began to talk of Paris. She loved the boulevards and the Bois. There was +grace in every street, and the trees in the Champs Elysees had a distinction +which trees had not elsewhere. They were sitting on a stile now by the +high-road, and Miss Wilkinson looked with disdain upon the stately elms in +front of them. And the theatres: the plays were brilliant, and the acting was +incomparable. She often went with Madame Foyot, the mother of the girls she was +educating, when she was trying on clothes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a misery to be poor!” she cried. “These beautiful +things, it’s only in Paris they know how to dress, and not to be able to +afford them! Poor Madame Foyot, she had no figure. Sometimes the dressmaker +used to whisper to me: ‘Ah, Mademoiselle, if she only had your +figure.’” +</p> + +<p> +Philip noticed then that Miss Wilkinson had a robust form and was proud of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Men are so stupid in England. They only think of the face. The French, +who are a nation of lovers, know how much more important the figure is.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had never thought of such things before, but he observed now that Miss +Wilkinson’s ankles were thick and ungainly. He withdrew his eyes quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“You should go to France. Why don’t you go to Paris for a year? You +would learn French, and it would—deniaiser you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She laughed slyly. +</p> + +<p> +“You must look it out in the dictionary. Englishmen do not know how to +treat women. They are so shy. Shyness is ridiculous in a man. They don’t +know how to make love. They can’t even tell a woman she is charming +without looking foolish.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt himself absurd. Miss Wilkinson evidently expected him to behave +very differently; and he would have been delighted to say gallant and witty +things, but they never occurred to him; and when they did he was too much +afraid of making a fool of himself to say them. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I love Paris,” sighed Miss Wilkinson. “But I had to go +to Berlin. I was with the Foyots till the girls married, and then I could get +nothing to do, and I had the chance of this post in Berlin. They’re +relations of Madame Foyot, and I accepted. I had a tiny apartment in the Rue +Breda, on the cinquieme: it wasn’t at all respectable. You know about the +Rue Breda—ces dames, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip nodded, not knowing at all what she meant, but vaguely suspecting, and +anxious she should not think him too ignorant. +</p> + +<p> +“But I didn’t care. Je suis libre, n’est-ce pas?” She +was very fond of speaking French, which indeed she spoke well. “Once I +had such a curious adventure there.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused a little and Philip pressed her to tell it. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t tell me yours in Heidelberg,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“They were so unadventurous,” he retorted. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what Mrs. Carey would say if she knew the sort of +things we talk about together.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t imagine I shall tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you promise?” +</p> + +<p> +When he had done this, she told him how an art-student who had a room on the +floor above her—but she interrupted herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you go in for art? You paint so prettily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not well enough for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is for others to judge. Je m’y connais, and I believe you +have the making of a great artist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you see Uncle William’s face if I suddenly told him I +wanted to go to Paris and study art?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re your own master, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re trying to put me off. Please go on with the story.” +Miss Wilkinson, with a little laugh, went on. The art-student had passed her +several times on the stairs, and she had paid no particular attention. She saw +that he had fine eyes, and he took off his hat very politely. And one day she +found a letter slipped under her door. It was from him. He told her that he had +adored her for months, and that he waited about the stairs for her to pass. Oh, +it was a charming letter! Of course she did not reply, but what woman could +help being flattered? And next day there was another letter! It was wonderful, +passionate, and touching. When next she met him on the stairs she did not know +which way to look. And every day the letters came, and now he begged her to see +him. He said he would come in the evening, vers neuf heures, and she did not +know what to do. Of course it was impossible, and he might ring and ring, but +she would never open the door; and then while she was waiting for the tinkling +of the bell, all nerves, suddenly he stood before her. She had forgotten to +shut the door when she came in. +</p> + +<p> +“C’etait une fatalite.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what happened then?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“That is the end of the story,” she replied, with a ripple of +laughter. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent for a moment. His heart beat quickly, and strange emotions +seemed to be hustling one another in his heart. He saw the dark staircase and +the chance meetings, and he admired the boldness of the letters—oh, he +would never have dared to do that—and then the silent, almost mysterious +entrance. It seemed to him the very soul of romance. +</p> + +<p> +“What was he like?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he was handsome. Charmant garcon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know him still?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt a slight feeling of irritation as he asked this. +</p> + +<p> +“He treated me abominably. Men are always the same. You’re +heartless, all of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that,” said Philip, not without +embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go home,” said Miss Wilkinson. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXIII</h2> + +<p> +Philip could not get Miss Wilkinson’s story out of his head. It was clear +enough what she meant even though she cut it short, and he was a little +shocked. That sort of thing was all very well for married women, he had read +enough French novels to know that in France it was indeed the rule, but Miss +Wilkinson was English and unmarried; her father was a clergyman. Then it struck +him that the art-student probably was neither the first nor the last of her +lovers, and he gasped: he had never looked upon Miss Wilkinson like that; it +seemed incredible that anyone should make love to her. In his ingenuousness he +doubted her story as little as he doubted what he read in books, and he was +angry that such wonderful things never happened to him. It was humiliating that +if Miss Wilkinson insisted upon his telling her of his adventures in Heidelberg +he would have nothing to tell. It was true that he had some power of invention, +but he was not sure whether he could persuade her that he was steeped in vice; +women were full of intuition, he had read that, and she might easily discover +that he was fibbing. He blushed scarlet as he thought of her laughing up her +sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson played the piano and sang in a rather tired voice; but her +songs, Massenet, Benjamin Goddard, and Augusta Holmes, were new to Philip; and +together they spent many hours at the piano. One day she wondered if he had a +voice and insisted on trying it. She told him he had a pleasant baritone and +offered to give him lessons. At first with his usual bashfulness he refused, +but she insisted, and then every morning at a convenient time after breakfast +she gave him an hour’s lesson. She had a natural gift for teaching, and +it was clear that she was an excellent governess. She had method and firmness. +Though her French accent was so much part of her that it remained, all the +mellifluousness of her manner left her when she was engaged in teaching. She +put up with no nonsense. Her voice became a little peremptory, and +instinctively she suppressed inattention and corrected slovenliness. She knew +what she was about and put Philip to scales and exercises. +</p> + +<p> +When the lesson was over she resumed without effort her seductive smiles, her +voice became again soft and winning, but Philip could not so easily put away +the pupil as she the pedagogue; and this impression convicted with the feelings +her stories had aroused in him. He looked at her more narrowly. He liked her +much better in the evening than in the morning. In the morning she was rather +lined and the skin of her neck was just a little rough. He wished she would +hide it, but the weather was very warm just then and she wore blouses which +were cut low. She was very fond of white; in the morning it did not suit her. +At night she often looked very attractive, she put on a gown which was almost a +dinner dress, and she wore a chain of garnets round her neck; the lace about +her bosom and at her elbows gave her a pleasant softness, and the scent she +wore (at Blackstable no one used anything but Eau de Cologne, and that only on +Sundays or when suffering from a sick headache) was troubling and exotic. She +really looked very young then. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was much exercised over her age. He added twenty and seventeen together, +and could not bring them to a satisfactory total. He asked Aunt Louisa more +than once why she thought Miss Wilkinson was thirty-seven: she didn’t +look more than thirty, and everyone knew that foreigners aged more rapidly than +English women; Miss Wilkinson had lived so long abroad that she might almost be +called a foreigner. He personally wouldn’t have thought her more than +twenty-six. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s more than that,” said Aunt Louisa. +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not believe in the accuracy of the Careys’ statements. All +they distinctly remembered was that Miss Wilkinson had not got her hair up the +last time they saw her in Lincolnshire. Well, she might have been twelve then: +it was so long ago and the Vicar was always so unreliable. They said it was +twenty years ago, but people used round figures, and it was just as likely to +be eighteen years, or seventeen. Seventeen and twelve were only twenty-nine, +and hang it all, that wasn’t old, was it? Cleopatra was forty-eight when +Antony threw away the world for her sake. +</p> + +<p> +It was a fine summer. Day after day was hot and cloudless; but the heat was +tempered by the neighbourhood of the sea, and there was a pleasant exhilaration +in the air, so that one was excited and not oppressed by the August sunshine. +There was a pond in the garden in which a fountain played; water lilies grew in +it and gold fish sunned themselves on the surface. Philip and Miss Wilkinson +used to take rugs and cushions there after dinner and lie on the lawn in the +shade of a tall hedge of roses. They talked and read all the afternoon. They +smoked cigarettes, which the Vicar did not allow in the house; he thought +smoking a disgusting habit, and used frequently to say that it was disgraceful +for anyone to grow a slave to a habit. He forgot that he was himself a slave to +afternoon tea. +</p> + +<p> +One day Miss Wilkinson gave Philip La Vie de Boheme. She had found it by +accident when she was rummaging among the books in the Vicar’s study. It +had been bought in a lot with something Mr. Carey wanted and had remained +undiscovered for ten years. +</p> + +<p> +Philip began to read Murger’s fascinating, ill-written, absurd +masterpiece, and fell at once under its spell. His soul danced with joy at that +picture of starvation which is so good-humoured, of squalor which is so +picturesque, of sordid love which is so romantic, of bathos which is so moving. +Rodolphe and Mimi, Musette and Schaunard! They wander through the gray streets +of the Latin Quarter, finding refuge now in one attic, now in another, in their +quaint costumes of Louis Philippe, with their tears and their smiles, +happy-go-lucky and reckless. Who can resist them? It is only when you return to +the book with a sounder judgment that you find how gross their pleasures were, +how vulgar their minds; and you feel the utter worthlessness, as artists and as +human beings, of that gay procession. Philip was enraptured. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you wish you were going to Paris instead of London?” +asked Miss Wilkinson, smiling at his enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s too late now even if I did,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +During the fortnight he had been back from Germany there had been much +discussion between himself and his uncle about his future. He had refused +definitely to go to Oxford, and now that there was no chance of his getting +scholarships even Mr. Carey came to the conclusion that he could not afford it. +His entire fortune had consisted of only two thousand pounds, and though it had +been invested in mortgages at five per cent, he had not been able to live on +the interest. It was now a little reduced. It would be absurd to spend two +hundred a year, the least he could live on at a university, for three years at +Oxford which would lead him no nearer to earning his living. He was anxious to +go straight to London. Mrs. Carey thought there were only four professions for +a gentleman, the Army, the Navy, the Law, and the Church. She had added +medicine because her brother-in-law practised it, but did not forget that in +her young days no one ever considered the doctor a gentleman. The first two +were out of the question, and Philip was firm in his refusal to be ordained. +Only the law remained. The local doctor had suggested that many gentlemen now +went in for engineering, but Mrs. Carey opposed the idea at once. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t like Philip to go into trade,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, he must have a profession,” answered the Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not make him a doctor like his father?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should hate it,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey was not sorry. The Bar seemed out of the question, since he was not +going to Oxford, for the Careys were under the impression that a degree was +still necessary for success in that calling; and finally it was suggested that +he should become articled to a solicitor. They wrote to the family lawyer, +Albert Nixon, who was co-executor with the Vicar of Blackstable for the late +Henry Carey’s estate, and asked him whether he would take Philip. In a +day or two the answer came back that he had not a vacancy, and was very much +opposed to the whole scheme; the profession was greatly overcrowded, and +without capital or connections a man had small chance of becoming more than a +managing clerk; he suggested, however, that Philip should become a chartered +accountant. Neither the Vicar nor his wife knew in the least what this was, and +Philip had never heard of anyone being a chartered accountant; but another +letter from the solicitor explained that the growth of modern businesses and +the increase of companies had led to the formation of many firms of accountants +to examine the books and put into the financial affairs of their clients an +order which old-fashioned methods had lacked. Some years before a Royal Charter +had been obtained, and the profession was becoming every year more respectable, +lucrative, and important. The chartered accountants whom Albert Nixon had +employed for thirty years happened to have a vacancy for an articled pupil, and +would take Philip for a fee of three hundred pounds. Half of this would be +returned during the five years the articles lasted in the form of salary. The +prospect was not exciting, but Philip felt that he must decide on something, +and the thought of living in London over-balanced the slight shrinking he felt. +The Vicar of Blackstable wrote to ask Mr. Nixon whether it was a profession +suited to a gentleman; and Mr. Nixon replied that, since the Charter, men were +going into it who had been to public schools and a university; moreover, if +Philip disliked the work and after a year wished to leave, Herbert Carter, for +that was the accountant’s name, would return half the money paid for the +articles. This settled it, and it was arranged that Philip should start work on +the fifteenth of September. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a full month before me,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“And then you go to freedom and I to bondage,” returned Miss +Wilkinson. +</p> + +<p> +Her holidays were to last six weeks, and she would be leaving Blackstable only +a day or two before Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if we shall ever meet again,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t speak in that practical way. I never knew anyone so +unsentimental.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened. He was afraid that Miss Wilkinson would think him a milksop: +after all she was a young woman, sometimes quite pretty, and he was getting on +for twenty; it was absurd that they should talk of nothing but art and +literature. He ought to make love to her. They had talked a good deal of love. +There was the art-student in the Rue Breda, and then there was the painter in +whose family she had lived so long in Paris: he had asked her to sit for him, +and had started to make love to her so violently that she was forced to invent +excuses not to sit to him again. It was clear enough that Miss Wilkinson was +used to attentions of that sort. She looked very nice now in a large straw hat: +it was hot that afternoon, the hottest day they had had, and beads of sweat +stood in a line on her upper lip. He called to mind Fraulein Cacilie and Herr +Sung. He had never thought of Cacilie in an amorous way, she was exceedingly +plain; but now, looking back, the affair seemed very romantic. He had a chance +of romance too. Miss Wilkinson was practically French, and that added zest to a +possible adventure. When he thought of it at night in bed, or when he sat by +himself in the garden reading a book, he was thrilled by it; but when he saw +Miss Wilkinson it seemed less picturesque. +</p> + +<p> +At all events, after what she had told him, she would not be surprised if he +made love to her. He had a feeling that she must think it odd of him to make no +sign: perhaps it was only his fancy, but once or twice in the last day or two +he had imagined that there was a suspicion of contempt in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“A penny for your thoughts,” said Miss Wilkinson, looking at him +with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to tell you,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +He was thinking that he ought to kiss her there and then. He wondered if she +expected him to do it; but after all he didn’t see how he could without +any preliminary business at all. She would just think him mad, or she might +slap his face; and perhaps she would complain to his uncle. He wondered how +Herr Sung had started with Fraulein Cacilie. It would be beastly if she told +his uncle: he knew what his uncle was, he would tell the doctor and Josiah +Graves; and he would look a perfect fool. Aunt Louisa kept on saying that Miss +Wilkinson was thirty-seven if she was a day; he shuddered at the thought of the +ridicule he would be exposed to; they would say she was old enough to be his +mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Twopence for your thoughts,” smiled Miss Wilkinson. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking about you,” he answered boldly. +</p> + +<p> +That at all events committed him to nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“What were you thinking?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, now you want to know too much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Naughty boy!” said Miss Wilkinson. +</p> + +<p> +There it was again! Whenever he had succeeded in working himself up she said +something which reminded him of the governess. She called him playfully a +naughty boy when he did not sing his exercises to her satisfaction. This time +he grew quite sulky. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t treat me as if I were a child.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you cross?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean to.” +</p> + +<p> +She put out her hand and he took it. Once or twice lately when they shook hands +at night he had fancied she slightly pressed his hand, but this time there was +no doubt about it. +</p> + +<p> +He did not quite know what he ought to say next. Here at last was his chance of +an adventure, and he would be a fool not to take it; but it was a little +ordinary, and he had expected more glamour. He had read many descriptions of +love, and he felt in himself none of that uprush of emotion which novelists +described; he was not carried off his feet in wave upon wave of passion; nor +was Miss Wilkinson the ideal: he had often pictured to himself the great violet +eyes and the alabaster skin of some lovely girl, and he had thought of himself +burying his face in the rippling masses of her auburn hair. He could not +imagine himself burying his face in Miss Wilkinson’s hair, it always +struck him as a little sticky. All the same it would be very satisfactory to +have an intrigue, and he thrilled with the legitimate pride he would enjoy in +his conquest. He owed it to himself to seduce her. He made up his mind to kiss +Miss Wilkinson; not then, but in the evening; it would be easier in the dark, +and after he had kissed her the rest would follow. He would kiss her that very +evening. He swore an oath to that effect. +</p> + +<p> +He laid his plans. After supper he suggested that they should take a stroll in +the garden. Miss Wilkinson accepted, and they sauntered side by side. Philip +was very nervous. He did not know why, but the conversation would not lead in +the right direction; he had decided that the first thing to do was to put his +arm round her waist; but he could not suddenly put his arm round her waist when +she was talking of the regatta which was to be held next week. He led her +artfully into the darkest parts of the garden, but having arrived there his +courage failed him. They sat on a bench, and he had really made up his mind +that here was his opportunity when Miss Wilkinson said she was sure there were +earwigs and insisted on moving. They walked round the garden once more, and +Philip promised himself he would take the plunge before they arrived at that +bench again; but as they passed the house, they saw Mrs. Carey standing at the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“Hadn’t you young people better come in? I’m sure the night +air isn’t good for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps we had better go in,” said Philip. “I don’t +want you to catch cold.” +</p> + +<p> +He said it with a sigh of relief. He could attempt nothing more that night. But +afterwards, when he was alone in his room, he was furious with himself. He had +been a perfect fool. He was certain that Miss Wilkinson expected him to kiss +her, otherwise she wouldn’t have come into the garden. She was always +saying that only Frenchmen knew how to treat women. Philip had read French +novels. If he had been a Frenchman he would have seized her in his arms and +told her passionately that he adored her; he would have pressed his lips on her +nuque. He did not know why Frenchmen always kissed ladies on the nuque. He did +not himself see anything so very attractive in the nape of the neck. Of course +it was much easier for Frenchmen to do these things; the language was such an +aid; Philip could never help feeling that to say passionate things in English +sounded a little absurd. He wished now that he had never undertaken the siege +of Miss Wilkinson’s virtue; the first fortnight had been so jolly, and +now he was wretched; but he was determined not to give in, he would never +respect himself again if he did, and he made up his mind irrevocably that the +next night he would kiss her without fail. +</p> + +<p> +Next day when he got up he saw it was raining, and his first thought was that +they would not be able to go into the garden that evening. He was in high +spirits at breakfast. Miss Wilkinson sent Mary Ann in to say that she had a +headache and would remain in bed. She did not come down till tea-time, when she +appeared in a becoming wrapper and a pale face; but she was quite recovered by +supper, and the meal was very cheerful. After prayers she said she would go +straight to bed, and she kissed Mrs. Carey. Then she turned to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” she cried. “I was just going to kiss you +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She laughed and held out her hand. She distinctly pressed his. +</p> + +<p> +The following day there was not a cloud in the sky, and the garden was sweet +and fresh after the rain. Philip went down to the beach to bathe and when he +came home ate a magnificent dinner. They were having a tennis party at the +vicarage in the afternoon and Miss Wilkinson put on her best dress. She +certainly knew how to wear her clothes, and Philip could not help noticing how +elegant she looked beside the curate’s wife and the doctor’s +married daughter. There were two roses in her waistband. She sat in a garden +chair by the side of the lawn, holding a red parasol over herself, and the +light on her face was very becoming. Philip was fond of tennis. He served well +and as he ran clumsily played close to the net: notwithstanding his club-foot +he was quick, and it was difficult to get a ball past him. He was pleased +because he won all his sets. At tea he lay down at Miss Wilkinson’s feet, +hot and panting. +</p> + +<p> +“Flannels suit you,” she said. “You look very nice this +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +He blushed with delight. +</p> + +<p> +“I can honestly return the compliment. You look perfectly +ravishing.” +</p> + +<p> +She smiled and gave him a long look with her black eyes. +</p> + +<p> +After supper he insisted that she should come out. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you had enough exercise for one day?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll be lovely in the garden tonight. The stars are all +out.” +</p> + +<p> +He was in high spirits. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you know, Mrs. Carey has been scolding me on your +account?” said Miss Wilkinson, when they were sauntering through the +kitchen garden. “She says I mustn’t flirt with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been flirting with me? I hadn’t noticed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was only joking.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was very unkind of you to refuse to kiss me last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you saw the look your uncle gave me when I said what I did!” +</p> + +<p> +“Was that all that prevented you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I prefer to kiss people without witnesses.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are no witnesses now.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip put his arm round her waist and kissed her lips. She only laughed a +little and made no attempt to withdraw. It had come quite naturally. Philip was +very proud of himself. He said he would, and he had. It was the easiest thing +in the world. He wished he had done it before. He did it again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you mustn’t,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I like it,” she laughed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXIV</h2> + +<p> +Next day after dinner they took their rugs and cushions to the fountain, and +their books; but they did not read. Miss Wilkinson made herself comfortable and +she opened the red sun-shade. Philip was not at all shy now, but at first she +would not let him kiss her. +</p> + +<p> +“It was very wrong of me last night,” she said. “I +couldn’t sleep, I felt I’d done so wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“What nonsense!” he cried. “I’m sure you slept like a +top.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think your uncle would say if he knew?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no reason why he should know.” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned over her, and his heart went pit-a-pat. +</p> + +<p> +“Why d’you want to kiss me?” +</p> + +<p> +He knew he ought to reply: “Because I love you.” But he could not +bring himself to say it. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you think?” he asked instead. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with smiling eyes and touched his face with the tips of her +fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“How smooth your face is,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“I want shaving awfully,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was astonishing how difficult he found it to make romantic speeches. He +found that silence helped him much more than words. He could look inexpressible +things. Miss Wilkinson sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like me at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, awfully.” +</p> + +<p> +When he tried to kiss her again she did not resist. He pretended to be much +more passionate than he really was, and he succeeded in playing a part which +looked very well in his own eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m beginning to be rather frightened of you,” said Miss +Wilkinson. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll come out after supper, won’t you?” he begged. +</p> + +<p> +“Not unless you promise to behave yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll promise anything.” +</p> + +<p> +He was catching fire from the flame he was partly simulating, and at tea-time +he was obstreperously merry. Miss Wilkinson looked at him nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t have those shining eyes,” she said to him +afterwards. “What will your Aunt Louisa think?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care what she thinks.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson gave a little laugh of pleasure. They had no sooner finished +supper than he said to her: +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to keep me company while I smoke a cigarette?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you let Miss Wilkinson rest?” said Mrs. Carey. +“You must remember she’s not as young as you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’d like to go out, Mrs. Carey,” she said, rather +acidly. +</p> + +<p> +“After dinner walk a mile, after supper rest a while,” said the +Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +“Your aunt is very nice, but she gets on my nerves sometimes,” said +Miss Wilkinson, as soon as they closed the side-door behind them. +</p> + +<p> +Philip threw away the cigarette he had just lighted, and flung his arms round +her. She tried to push him away. +</p> + +<p> +“You promised you’d be good, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t think I was going to keep a promise like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so near the house, Philip,” she said. “Supposing someone +should come out suddenly?” +</p> + +<p> +He led her to the kitchen garden where no one was likely to come, and this time +Miss Wilkinson did not think of earwigs. He kissed her passionately. It was one +of the things that puzzled him that he did not like her at all in the morning, +and only moderately in the afternoon, but at night the touch of her hand +thrilled him. He said things that he would never have thought himself capable +of saying; he could certainly never have said them in the broad light of day; +and he listened to himself with wonder and satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“How beautifully you make love,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +That was what he thought himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if I could only say all the things that burn my heart!” he +murmured passionately. +</p> + +<p> +It was splendid. It was the most thrilling game he had ever played; and the +wonderful thing was that he felt almost all he said. It was only that he +exaggerated a little. He was tremendously interested and excited in the effect +he could see it had on her. It was obviously with an effort that at last she +suggested going in. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t go yet,” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“I must,” she muttered. “I’m frightened.” +</p> + +<p> +He had a sudden intuition what was the right thing to do then. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t go in yet. I shall stay here and think. My cheeks are +burning. I want the night-air. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +He held out his hand seriously, and she took it in silence. He thought she +stifled a sob. Oh, it was magnificent! When, after a decent interval during +which he had been rather bored in the dark garden by himself, he went in he +found that Miss Wilkinson had already gone to bed. +</p> + +<p> +After that things were different between them. The next day and the day after +Philip showed himself an eager lover. He was deliciously flattered to discover +that Miss Wilkinson was in love with him: she told him so in English, and she +told him so in French. She paid him compliments. No one had ever informed him +before that his eyes were charming and that he had a sensual mouth. He had +never bothered much about his personal appearance, but now, when occasion +presented, he looked at himself in the glass with satisfaction. When he kissed +her it was wonderful to feel the passion that seemed to thrill her soul. He +kissed her a good deal, for he found it easier to do that than to say the +things he instinctively felt she expected of him. It still made him feel a fool +to say he worshipped her. He wished there were someone to whom he could boast a +little, and he would willingly have discussed minute points of his conduct. +Sometimes she said things that were enigmatic, and he was puzzled. He wished +Hayward had been there so that he could ask him what he thought she meant, and +what he had better do next. He could not make up his mind whether he ought to +rush things or let them take their time. There were only three weeks more. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t bear to think of that,” she said. “It breaks +my heart. And then perhaps we shall never see one another again.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you cared for me at all, you wouldn’t be so unkind to +me,” he whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, why can’t you be content to let it go on as it is? Men are +always the same. They’re never satisfied.” +</p> + +<p> +And when he pressed her, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you see it’s impossible. How can we here?” +</p> + +<p> +He proposed all sorts of schemes, but she would not have anything to do with +them. +</p> + +<p> +“I daren’t take the risk. It would be too dreadful if your aunt +found out.” +</p> + +<p> +A day or two later he had an idea which seemed brilliant. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, if you had a headache on Sunday evening and offered to stay +at home and look after the house, Aunt Louisa would go to church.” +</p> + +<p> +Generally Mrs. Carey remained in on Sunday evening in order to allow Mary Ann +to go to church, but she would welcome the opportunity of attending evensong. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had not found it necessary to impart to his relations the change in his +views on Christianity which had occurred in Germany; they could not be expected +to understand; and it seemed less trouble to go to church quietly. But he only +went in the morning. He regarded this as a graceful concession to the +prejudices of society and his refusal to go a second time as an adequate +assertion of free thought. +</p> + +<p> +When he made the suggestion, Miss Wilkinson did not speak for a moment, then +shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +But on Sunday at tea-time she surprised Philip. “I don’t think +I’ll come to church this evening,” she said suddenly. +“I’ve really got a dreadful headache.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey, much concerned, insisted on giving her some ‘drops’ +which she was herself in the habit of using. Miss Wilkinson thanked her, and +immediately after tea announced that she would go to her room and lie down. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure there’s nothing you’ll want?” asked Mrs. +Carey anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite sure, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because, if there isn’t, I think I’ll go to church. I +don’t often have the chance of going in the evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, do go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be in,” said Philip. “If Miss Wilkinson wants +anything, she can always call me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better leave the drawing-room door open, Philip, so that if +Miss Wilkinson rings, you’ll hear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +So after six o’clock Philip was left alone in the house with Miss +Wilkinson. He felt sick with apprehension. He wished with all his heart that he +had not suggested the plan; but it was too late now; he must take the +opportunity which he had made. What would Miss Wilkinson think of him if he did +not! He went into the hall and listened. There was not a sound. He wondered if +Miss Wilkinson really had a headache. Perhaps she had forgotten his suggestion. +His heart beat painfully. He crept up the stairs as softly as he could, and he +stopped with a start when they creaked. He stood outside Miss Wilkinson’s +room and listened; he put his hand on the knob of the door-handle. He waited. +It seemed to him that he waited for at least five minutes, trying to make up +his mind; and his hand trembled. He would willingly have bolted, but he was +afraid of the remorse which he knew would seize him. It was like getting on the +highest diving-board in a swimming-bath; it looked nothing from below, but when +you got up there and stared down at the water your heart sank; and the only +thing that forced you to dive was the shame of coming down meekly by the steps +you had climbed up. Philip screwed up his courage. He turned the handle softly +and walked in. He seemed to himself to be trembling like a leaf. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson was standing at the dressing-table with her back to the door, +and she turned round quickly when she heard it open. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s you. What d’you want?” +</p> + +<p> +She had taken off her skirt and blouse, and was standing in her petticoat. It +was short and only came down to the top of her boots; the upper part of it was +black, of some shiny material, and there was a red flounce. She wore a camisole +of white calico with short arms. She looked grotesque. Philip’s heart +sank as he stared at her; she had never seemed so unattractive; but it was too +late now. He closed the door behind him and locked it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXV</h2> + +<p> +Philip woke early next morning. His sleep had been restless; but when he +stretched his legs and looked at the sunshine that slid through the Venetian +blinds, making patterns on the floor, he sighed with satisfaction. He was +delighted with himself. He began to think of Miss Wilkinson. She had asked him +to call her Emily, but, he knew not why, he could not; he always thought of her +as Miss Wilkinson. Since she chid him for so addressing her, he avoided using +her name at all. During his childhood he had often heard a sister of Aunt +Louisa, the widow of a naval officer, spoken of as Aunt Emily. It made him +uncomfortable to call Miss Wilkinson by that name, nor could he think of any +that would have suited her better. She had begun as Miss Wilkinson, and it +seemed inseparable from his impression of her. He frowned a little: somehow or +other he saw her now at her worst; he could not forget his dismay when she +turned round and he saw her in her camisole and the short petticoat; he +remembered the slight roughness of her skin and the sharp, long lines on the +side of the neck. His triumph was short-lived. He reckoned out her age again, +and he did not see how she could be less than forty. It made the affair +ridiculous. She was plain and old. His quick fancy showed her to him, wrinkled, +haggard, made-up, in those frocks which were too showy for her position and too +young for her years. He shuddered; he felt suddenly that he never wanted to see +her again; he could not bear the thought of kissing her. He was horrified with +himself. Was that love? +</p> + +<p> +He took as long as he could over dressing in order to put back the moment of +seeing her, and when at last he went into the dining-room it was with a sinking +heart. Prayers were over, and they were sitting down at breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +“Lazybones,” Miss Wilkinson cried gaily. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her and gave a little gasp of relief. She was sitting with her +back to the window. She was really quite nice. He wondered why he had thought +such things about her. His self-satisfaction returned to him. +</p> + +<p> +He was taken aback by the change in her. She told him in a voice thrilling with +emotion immediately after breakfast that she loved him; and when a little later +they went into the drawing-room for his singing lesson and she sat down on the +music-stool she put up her face in the middle of a scale and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Embrasse-moi.” +</p> + +<p> +When he bent down she flung her arms round his neck. It was slightly +uncomfortable, for she held him in such a position that he felt rather choked. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, je t’aime. Je t’aime. Je t’aime,” she cried, +with her extravagantly French accent. +</p> + +<p> +Philip wished she would speak English. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I don’t know if it’s struck you that the +gardener’s quite likely to pass the window any minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, je m’en fiche du jardinier. Je m’en refiche, et je +m’en contrefiche.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought it was very like a French novel, and he did not know why it +slightly irritated him. +</p> + +<p> +At last he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think I’ll tootle along to the beach and have a +dip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’re not going to leave me this morning—of all +mornings?” Philip did not quite know why he should not, but it did not +matter. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like me to stay?” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you darling! But no, go. Go. I want to think of you mastering the +salt sea waves, bathing your limbs in the broad ocean.” +</p> + +<p> +He got his hat and sauntered off. +</p> + +<p> +“What rot women talk!” he thought to himself. +</p> + +<p> +But he was pleased and happy and flattered. She was evidently frightfully gone +on him. As he limped along the high street of Blackstable he looked with a +tinge of superciliousness at the people he passed. He knew a good many to nod +to, and as he gave them a smile of recognition he thought to himself, if they +only knew! He did want someone to know very badly. He thought he would write to +Hayward, and in his mind composed the letter. He would talk of the garden and +the roses, and the little French governess, like an exotic flower amongst them, +scented and perverse: he would say she was French, because—well, she had +lived in France so long that she almost was, and besides it would be shabby to +give the whole thing away too exactly, don’t you know; and he would tell +Hayward how he had seen her first in her pretty muslin dress and of the flower +she had given him. He made a delicate idyl of it: the sunshine and the sea gave +it passion and magic, and the stars added poetry, and the old vicarage garden +was a fit and exquisite setting. There was something Meredithian about it: it +was not quite Lucy Feverel and not quite Clara Middleton; but it was +inexpressibly charming. Philip’s heart beat quickly. He was so delighted +with his fancies that he began thinking of them again as soon as he crawled +back, dripping and cold, into his bathing-machine. He thought of the object of +his affections. She had the most adorable little nose and large brown +eyes—he would describe her to Hayward—and masses of soft brown +hair, the sort of hair it was delicious to bury your face in, and a skin which +was like ivory and sunshine, and her cheek was like a red, red rose. How old +was she? Eighteen perhaps, and he called her Musette. Her laughter was like a +rippling brook, and her voice was so soft, so low, it was the sweetest music he +had ever heard. +</p> + +<p> +“What ARE you thinking about?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip stopped suddenly. He was walking slowly home. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been waving at you for the last quarter of a mile. You ARE +absent-minded.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson was standing in front of him, laughing at his surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d come and meet you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s awfully nice of you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I startle you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You did a bit,” he admitted. +</p> + +<p> +He wrote his letter to Hayward all the same. There were eight pages of it. +</p> + +<p> +The fortnight that remained passed quickly, and though each evening, when they +went into the garden after supper, Miss Wilkinson remarked that one day more +had gone, Philip was in too cheerful spirits to let the thought depress him. +One night Miss Wilkinson suggested that it would be delightful if she could +exchange her situation in Berlin for one in London. Then they could see one +another constantly. Philip said it would be very jolly, but the prospect +aroused no enthusiasm in him; he was looking forward to a wonderful life in +London, and he preferred not to be hampered. He spoke a little too freely of +all he meant to do, and allowed Miss Wilkinson to see that already he was +longing to be off. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t talk like that if you loved me,” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +He was taken aback and remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +“What a fool I’ve been,” she muttered. +</p> + +<p> +To his surprise he saw that she was crying. He had a tender heart, and hated to +see anyone miserable. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m awfully sorry. What have I done? Don’t cry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip, don’t leave me. You don’t know what you mean to +me. I have such a wretched life, and you’ve made me so happy.” +</p> + +<p> +He kissed her silently. There really was anguish in her tone, and he was +frightened. It had never occurred to him that she meant what she said quite, +quite seriously. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry. You know I’m frightfully fond of you. I +wish you would come to London.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I can’t. Places are almost impossible to get, and I hate +English life.” +</p> + +<p> +Almost unconscious that he was acting a part, moved by her distress, he pressed +her more and more. Her tears vaguely flattered him, and he kissed her with real +passion. +</p> + +<p> +But a day or two later she made a real scene. There was a tennis-party at the +vicarage, and two girls came, daughters of a retired major in an Indian +regiment who had lately settled in Blackstable. They were very pretty, one was +Philip’s age and the other was a year or two younger. Being used to the +society of young men (they were full of stories of hill-stations in India, and +at that time the stories of Rudyard Kipling were in every hand) they began to +chaff Philip gaily; and he, pleased with the novelty—the young ladies at +Blackstable treated the Vicar’s nephew with a certain +seriousness—was gay and jolly. Some devil within him prompted him to +start a violent flirtation with them both, and as he was the only young man +there, they were quite willing to meet him half-way. It happened that they +played tennis quite well and Philip was tired of pat-ball with Miss Wilkinson +(she had only begun to play when she came to Blackstable), so when he arranged +the sets after tea he suggested that Miss Wilkinson should play against the +curate’s wife, with the curate as her partner; and he would play later +with the new-comers. He sat down by the elder Miss O’Connor and said to +her in an undertone: +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll get the duffers out of the way first, and then we’ll +have a jolly set afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +Apparently Miss Wilkinson overheard him, for she threw down her racket, and, +saying she had a headache, went away. It was plain to everyone that she was +offended. Philip was annoyed that she should make the fact public. The set was +arranged without her, but presently Mrs. Carey called him. +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, you’ve hurt Emily’s feelings. She’s gone to +her room and she’s crying.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, something about a duffer’s set. Do go to her, and say you +didn’t mean to be unkind, there’s a good boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +He knocked at Miss Wilkinson’s door, but receiving no answer went in. He +found her lying face downwards on her bed, weeping. He touched her on the +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, what on earth’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave me alone. I never want to speak to you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have I done? I’m awfully sorry if I’ve hurt your +feelings. I didn’t mean to. I say, do get up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m so unhappy. How could you be cruel to me? You know I hate +that stupid game. I only play because I want to play with you.” +</p> + +<p> +She got up and walked towards the dressing-table, but after a quick look in the +glass sank into a chair. She made her handkerchief into a ball and dabbed her +eyes with it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve given you the greatest thing a woman can give a man—oh, +what a fool I was—and you have no gratitude. You must be quite heartless. +How could you be so cruel as to torment me by flirting with those vulgar girls. +We’ve only got just over a week. Can’t you even give me +that?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip stood over her rather sulkily. He thought her behaviour childish. He was +vexed with her for having shown her ill-temper before strangers. +</p> + +<p> +“But you know I don’t care twopence about either of the +O’Connors. Why on earth should you think I do?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson put away her handkerchief. Her tears had made marks on her +powdered face, and her hair was somewhat disarranged. Her white dress did not +suit her very well just then. She looked at Philip with hungry, passionate +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Because you’re twenty and so’s she,” she said +hoarsely. “And I’m old.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened and looked away. The anguish of her tone made him feel +strangely uneasy. He wished with all his heart that he had never had anything +to do with Miss Wilkinson. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to make you unhappy,” he said awkwardly. +“You’d better go down and look after your friends. They’ll +wonder what has become of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +He was glad to leave her. +</p> + +<p> +The quarrel was quickly followed by a reconciliation, but the few days that +remained were sometimes irksome to Philip. He wanted to talk of nothing but the +future, and the future invariably reduced Miss Wilkinson to tears. At first her +weeping affected him, and feeling himself a beast he redoubled his +protestations of undying passion; but now it irritated him: it would have been +all very well if she had been a girl, but it was silly of a grown-up woman to +cry so much. She never ceased reminding him that he was under a debt of +gratitude to her which he could never repay. He was willing to acknowledge this +since she made a point of it, but he did not really know why he should be any +more grateful to her than she to him. He was expected to show his sense of +obligation in ways which were rather a nuisance: he had been a good deal used +to solitude, and it was a necessity to him sometimes; but Miss Wilkinson looked +upon it as an unkindness if he was not always at her beck and call. The Miss +O’Connors asked them both to tea, and Philip would have liked to go, but +Miss Wilkinson said she only had five days more and wanted him entirely to +herself. It was flattering, but a bore. Miss Wilkinson told him stories of the +exquisite delicacy of Frenchmen when they stood in the same relation to fair +ladies as he to Miss Wilkinson. She praised their courtesy, their passion for +self-sacrifice, their perfect tact. Miss Wilkinson seemed to want a great deal. +</p> + +<p> +Philip listened to her enumeration of the qualities which must be possessed by +the perfect lover, and he could not help feeling a certain satisfaction that +she lived in Berlin. +</p> + +<p> +“You will write to me, won’t you? Write to me every day. I want to +know everything you’re doing. You must keep nothing from me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be awfully, busy” he answered. “I’ll write as +often as I can.” +</p> + +<p> +She flung her arms passionately round his neck. He was embarrassed sometimes by +the demonstrations of her affection. He would have preferred her to be more +passive. It shocked him a little that she should give him so marked a lead: it +did not tally altogether with his prepossessions about the modesty of the +feminine temperament. +</p> + +<p> +At length the day came on which Miss Wilkinson was to go, and she came down to +breakfast, pale and subdued, in a serviceable travelling dress of black and +white check. She looked a very competent governess. Philip was silent too, for +he did not quite know what to say that would fit the circumstance; and he was +terribly afraid that, if he said something flippant, Miss Wilkinson would break +down before his uncle and make a scene. They had said their last good-bye to +one another in the garden the night before, and Philip was relieved that there +was now no opportunity for them to be alone. He remained in the dining-room +after breakfast in case Miss Wilkinson should insist on kissing him on the +stairs. He did not want Mary Ann, now a woman hard upon middle age with a sharp +tongue, to catch them in a compromising position. Mary Ann did not like Miss +Wilkinson and called her an old cat. Aunt Louisa was not very well and could +not come to the station, but the Vicar and Philip saw her off. Just as the +train was leaving she leaned out and kissed Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“I must kiss you too, Philip,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he said, blushing. +</p> + +<p> +He stood up on the step and she kissed him quickly. The train started, and Miss +Wilkinson sank into the corner of her carriage and wept disconsolately. Philip, +as he walked back to the vicarage, felt a distinct sensation of relief. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, did you see her safely off?” asked Aunt Louisa, when they +got in. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she seemed rather weepy. She insisted on kissing me and +Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, at her age it’s not dangerous.” Mrs. Carey pointed +to the sideboard. “There’s a letter for you, Philip. It came by the +second post.” +</p> + +<p> +It was from Hayward and ran as follows: +</p> + +<p> +My dear boy, +</p> + +<p> +I answer your letter at once. I ventured to read it to a great friend of mine, +a charming woman whose help and sympathy have been very precious to me, a woman +withal with a real feeling for art and literature; and we agreed that it was +charming. You wrote from your heart and you do not know the delightful naivete +which is in every line. And because you love you write like a poet. Ah, dear +boy, that is the real thing: I felt the glow of your young passion, and your +prose was musical from the sincerity of your emotion. You must be happy! I wish +I could have been present unseen in that enchanted garden while you wandered +hand in hand, like Daphnis and Chloe, amid the flowers. I can see you, my +Daphnis, with the light of young love in your eyes, tender, enraptured, and +ardent; while Chloe in your arms, so young and soft and fresh, vowing she would +ne’er consent—consented. Roses and violets and honeysuckle! Oh, my +friend, I envy you. It is so good to think that your first love should have +been pure poetry. Treasure the moments, for the immortal gods have given you +the Greatest Gift of All, and it will be a sweet, sad memory till your dying +day. You will never again enjoy that careless rapture. First love is best love; +and she is beautiful and you are young, and all the world is yours. I felt my +pulse go faster when with your adorable simplicity you told me that you buried +your face in her long hair. I am sure that it is that exquisite chestnut which +seems just touched with gold. I would have you sit under a leafy tree side by +side, and read together Romeo and Juliet; and then I would have you fall on +your knees and on my behalf kiss the ground on which her foot has left its +imprint; then tell her it is the homage of a poet to her radiant youth and to +your love for her.<br/> +Yours always,<br/> +G. Etheridge Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“What damned rot!” said Philip, when he finished the letter. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Wilkinson oddly enough had suggested that they should read Romeo and +Juliet together; but Philip had firmly declined. Then, as he put the letter in +his pocket, he felt a queer little pang of bitterness because reality seemed so +different from the ideal. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXVI</h2> + +<p> +A few days later Philip went to London. The curate had recommended rooms in +Barnes, and these Philip engaged by letter at fourteen shillings a week. He +reached them in the evening; and the landlady, a funny little old woman with a +shrivelled body and a deeply wrinkled face, had prepared high tea for him. Most +of the sitting-room was taken up by the sideboard and a square table; against +one wall was a sofa covered with horsehair, and by the fireplace an arm-chair +to match: there was a white antimacassar over the back of it, and on the seat, +because the springs were broken, a hard cushion. +</p> + +<p> +After having his tea he unpacked and arranged his books, then he sat down and +tried to read; but he was depressed. The silence in the street made him +slightly uncomfortable, and he felt very much alone. +</p> + +<p> +Next day he got up early. He put on his tail-coat and the tall hat which he had +worn at school; but it was very shabby, and he made up his mind to stop at the +Stores on his way to the office and buy a new one. When he had done this he +found himself in plenty of time and so walked along the Strand. The office of +Messrs. Herbert Carter & Co. was in a little street off Chancery Lane, and +he had to ask his way two or three times. He felt that people were staring at +him a great deal, and once he took off his hat to see whether by chance the +label had been left on. When he arrived he knocked at the door; but no one +answered, and looking at his watch he found it was barely half past nine; he +supposed he was too early. He went away and ten minutes later returned to find +an office-boy, with a long nose, pimply face, and a Scotch accent, opening the +door. Philip asked for Mr. Herbert Carter. He had not come yet. +</p> + +<p> +“When will he be here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Between ten and half past.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d better wait,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you wanting?” asked the office-boy. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was nervous, but tried to hide the fact by a jocose manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m going to work here if you have no objection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’re the new articled clerk? You’d better come in. Mr. +Goodworthy’ll be here in a while.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip walked in, and as he did so saw the office-boy—he was about the +same age as Philip and called himself a junior clerk—look at his foot. He +flushed and, sitting down, hid it behind the other. He looked round the room. +It was dark and very dingy. It was lit by a skylight. There were three rows of +desks in it and against them high stools. Over the chimney-piece was a dirty +engraving of a prize-fight. Presently a clerk came in and then another; they +glanced at Philip and in an undertone asked the office-boy (Philip found his +name was Macdougal) who he was. A whistle blew, and Macdougal got up. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Goodworthy’s come. He’s the managing clerk. Shall I tell +him you’re here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, please,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +The office-boy went out and in a moment returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you come this way?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip followed him across the passage and was shown into a room, small and +barely furnished, in which a little, thin man was standing with his back to the +fireplace. He was much below the middle height, but his large head, which +seemed to hang loosely on his body, gave him an odd ungainliness. His features +were wide and flattened, and he had prominent, pale eyes; his thin hair was +sandy; he wore whiskers that grew unevenly on his face, and in places where you +would have expected the hair to grow thickly there was no hair at all. His skin +was pasty and yellow. He held out his hand to Philip, and when he smiled showed +badly decayed teeth. He spoke with a patronising and at the same time a timid +air, as though he sought to assume an importance which he did not feel. He said +he hoped Philip would like the work; there was a good deal of drudgery about +it, but when you got used to it, it was interesting; and one made money, that +was the chief thing, wasn’t it? He laughed with his odd mixture of +superiority and shyness. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Carter will be here presently,” he said. “He’s a +little late on Monday mornings sometimes. I’ll call you when he comes. In +the meantime I must give you something to do. Do you know anything about +book-keeping or accounts?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid not,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t suppose you would. They don’t teach you things at +school that are much use in business, I’m afraid.” He considered +for a moment. “I think I can find you something to do.” +</p> + +<p> +He went into the next room and after a little while came out with a large +cardboard box. It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder, and he +told Philip to sort them out and arrange them alphabetically according to the +names of the writers. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take you to the room in which the articled clerk generally +sits. There’s a very nice fellow in it. His name is Watson. He’s a +son of Watson, Crag, and Thompson—you know—the brewers. He’s +spending a year with us to learn business.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Goodworthy led Philip through the dingy office, where now six or eight +clerks were working, into a narrow room behind. It had been made into a +separate apartment by a glass partition, and here they found Watson sitting +back in a chair, reading The Sportsman. He was a large, stout young man, +elegantly dressed, and he looked up as Mr. Goodworthy entered. He asserted his +position by calling the managing clerk Goodworthy. The managing clerk objected +to the familiarity, and pointedly called him Mr. Watson, but Watson, instead of +seeing that it was a rebuke, accepted the title as a tribute to his +gentlemanliness. +</p> + +<p> +“I see they’ve scratched Rigoletto,” he said to Philip, as +soon as they were left alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Have they?” said Philip, who knew nothing about horse-racing. +</p> + +<p> +He looked with awe upon Watson’s beautiful clothes. His tail-coat fitted +him perfectly, and there was a valuable pin artfully stuck in the middle of an +enormous tie. On the chimney-piece rested his tall hat; it was saucy and +bell-shaped and shiny. Philip felt himself very shabby. Watson began to talk of +hunting—it was such an infernal bore having to waste one’s time in +an infernal office, he would only be able to hunt on Saturdays—and +shooting: he had ripping invitations all over the country and of course he had +to refuse them. It was infernal luck, but he wasn’t going to put up with +it long; he was only in this internal hole for a year, and then he was going +into the business, and he would hunt four days a week and get all the shooting +there was. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got five years of it, haven’t you?” he said, +waving his arm round the tiny room. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay I shall see something of you. Carter does our accounts, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was somewhat overpowered by the young gentleman’s condescension. +At Blackstable they had always looked upon brewing with civil contempt, the +Vicar made little jokes about the beerage, and it was a surprising experience +for Philip to discover that Watson was such an important and magnificent +fellow. He had been to Winchester and to Oxford, and his conversation impressed +the fact upon one with frequency. When he discovered the details of +Philip’s education his manner became more patronising still. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, if one doesn’t go to a public school those sort of +schools are the next best thing, aren’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip asked about the other men in the office. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t bother about them much, you know,” said Watson. +“Carter’s not a bad sort. We have him to dine now and then. All the +rest are awful bounders.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently Watson applied himself to some work he had in hand, and Philip set +about sorting his letters. Then Mr. Goodworthy came in to say that Mr. Carter +had arrived. He took Philip into a large room next door to his own. There was a +big desk in it, and a couple of big arm-chairs; a Turkey carpet adorned the +floor, and the walls were decorated with sporting prints. Mr. Carter was +sitting at the desk and got up to shake hands with Philip. He was dressed in a +long frock coat. He looked like a military man; his moustache was waxed, his +gray hair was short and neat, he held himself upright, he talked in a breezy +way, he lived at Enfield. He was very keen on games and the good of the +country. He was an officer in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry and chairman of the +Conservative Association. When he was told that a local magnate had said no one +would take him for a City man, he felt that he had not lived in vain. He talked +to Philip in a pleasant, off-hand fashion. Mr. Goodworthy would look after him. +Watson was a nice fellow, perfect gentleman, good sportsman—did Philip +hunt? Pity, THE sport for gentlemen. Didn’t have much chance of hunting +now, had to leave that to his son. His son was at Cambridge, he’d sent +him to Rugby, fine school Rugby, nice class of boys there, in a couple of years +his son would be articled, that would be nice for Philip, he’d like his +son, thorough sportsman. He hoped Philip would get on well and like the work, +he mustn’t miss his lectures, they were getting up the tone of the +profession, they wanted gentlemen in it. Well, well, Mr. Goodworthy was there. +If he wanted to know anything Mr. Goodworthy would tell him. What was his +handwriting like? Ah well, Mr. Goodworthy would see about that. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was overwhelmed by so much gentlemanliness: in East Anglia they knew who +were gentlemen and who weren’t, but the gentlemen didn’t talk about +it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXVII</h2> + +<p> +At first the novelty of the work kept Philip interested. Mr. Carter dictated +letters to him, and he had to make fair copies of statements of accounts. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carter preferred to conduct the office on gentlemanly lines; he would have +nothing to do with typewriting and looked upon shorthand with disfavour: the +office-boy knew shorthand, but it was only Mr. Goodworthy who made use of his +accomplishment. Now and then Philip with one of the more experienced clerks +went out to audit the accounts of some firm: he came to know which of the +clients must be treated with respect and which were in low water. Now and then +long lists of figures were given him to add up. He attended lectures for his +first examination. Mr. Goodworthy repeated to him that the work was dull at +first, but he would grow used to it. Philip left the office at six and walked +across the river to Waterloo. His supper was waiting for him when he reached +his lodgings and he spent the evening reading. On Saturday afternoons he went +to the National Gallery. Hayward had recommended to him a guide which had been +compiled out of Ruskin’s works, and with this in hand he went +industriously through room after room: he read carefully what the critic had +said about a picture and then in a determined fashion set himself to see the +same things in it. His Sundays were difficult to get through. He knew no one in +London and spent them by himself. Mr. Nixon, the solicitor, asked him to spend +a Sunday at Hampstead, and Philip passed a happy day with a set of exuberant +strangers; he ate and drank a great deal, took a walk on the heath, and came +away with a general invitation to come again whenever he liked; but he was +morbidly afraid of being in the way, so waited for a formal invitation. +Naturally enough it never came, for with numbers of friends of their own the +Nixons did not think of the lonely, silent boy whose claim upon their +hospitality was so small. So on Sundays he got up late and took a walk along +the tow-path. At Barnes the river is muddy, dingy, and tidal; it has neither +the graceful charm of the Thames above the locks nor the romance of the crowded +stream below London Bridge. In the afternoon he walked about the common; and +that is gray and dingy too; it is neither country nor town; the gorse is +stunted; and all about is the litter of civilisation. He went to a play every +Saturday night and stood cheerfully for an hour or more at the gallery-door. It +was not worth while to go back to Barnes for the interval between the closing +of the Museum and his meal in an A. B. C. shop, and the time hung heavily on +his hands. He strolled up Bond Street or through the Burlington Arcade, and +when he was tired went and sat down in the Park or in wet weather in the public +library in St. Martin’s Lane. He looked at the people walking about and +envied them because they had friends; sometimes his envy turned to hatred +because they were happy and he was miserable. He had never imagined that it was +possible to be so lonely in a great city. Sometimes when he was standing at the +gallery-door the man next to him would attempt a conversation; but Philip had +the country boy’s suspicion of strangers and answered in such a way as to +prevent any further acquaintance. After the play was over, obliged to keep to +himself all he thought about it, he hurried across the bridge to Waterloo. When +he got back to his rooms, in which for economy no fire had been lit, his heart +sank. It was horribly cheerless. He began to loathe his lodgings and the long +solitary evenings he spent in them. Sometimes he felt so lonely that he could +not read, and then he sat looking into the fire hour after hour in bitter +wretchedness. +</p> + +<p> +He had spent three months in London now, and except for that one Sunday at +Hampstead had never talked to anyone but his fellow-clerks. One evening Watson +asked him to dinner at a restaurant and they went to a music-hall together; but +he felt shy and uncomfortable. Watson talked all the time of things he did not +care about, and while he looked upon Watson as a Philistine he could not help +admiring him. He was angry because Watson obviously set no store on his +culture, and with his way of taking himself at the estimate at which he saw +others held him he began to despise the acquirements which till then had seemed +to him not unimportant. He felt for the first time the humiliation of poverty. +His uncle sent him fourteen pounds a month and he had had to buy a good many +clothes. His evening suit cost him five guineas. He had not dared tell Watson +that it was bought in the Strand. Watson said there was only one tailor in +London. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you don’t dance,” said Watson, one day, with a +glance at Philip’s club-foot. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Pity. I’ve been asked to bring some dancing men to a ball. I could +have introduced you to some jolly girls.” +</p> + +<p> +Once or twice, hating the thought of going back to Barnes, Philip had remained +in town, and late in the evening wandered through the West End till he found +some house at which there was a party. He stood among the little group of +shabby people, behind the footmen, watching the guests arrive, and he listened +to the music that floated through the window. Sometimes, notwithstanding the +cold, a couple came on to the balcony and stood for a moment to get some fresh +air; and Philip, imagining that they were in love with one another, turned away +and limped along the street with a heavy hurt. He would never be able to stand +in that man’s place. He felt that no woman could ever really look upon +him without distaste for his deformity. +</p> + +<p> +That reminded him of Miss Wilkinson. He thought of her without satisfaction. +Before parting they had made an arrangement that she should write to Charing +Cross Post Office till he was able to send her an address, and when he went +there he found three letters from her. She wrote on blue paper with violet ink, +and she wrote in French. Philip wondered why she could not write in English +like a sensible woman, and her passionate expressions, because they reminded +him of a French novel, left him cold. She upbraided him for not having written, +and when he answered he excused himself by saying that he had been busy. He did +not quite know how to start the letter. He could not bring himself to use +dearest or darling, and he hated to address her as Emily, so finally he began +with the word dear. It looked odd, standing by itself, and rather silly, but he +made it do. It was the first love letter he had ever written, and he was +conscious of its tameness; he felt that he should say all sorts of vehement +things, how he thought of her every minute of the day and how he longed to kiss +her beautiful hands and how he trembled at the thought of her red lips, but +some inexplicable modesty prevented him; and instead he told her of his new +rooms and his office. The answer came by return of post, angry, heart-broken, +reproachful: how could he be so cold? Did he not know that she hung on his +letters? She had given him all that a woman could give, and this was her +reward. Was he tired of her already? Then, because he did not reply for several +days, Miss Wilkinson bombarded him with letters. She could not bear his +unkindness, she waited for the post, and it never brought her his letter, she +cried herself to sleep night after night, she was looking so ill that everyone +remarked on it: if he did not love her why did he not say so? She added that +she could not live without him, and the only thing was for her to commit +suicide. She told him he was cold and selfish and ungrateful. It was all in +French, and Philip knew that she wrote in that language to show off, but he was +worried all the same. He did not want to make her unhappy. In a little while +she wrote that she could not bear the separation any longer, she would arrange +to come over to London for Christmas. Philip wrote back that he would like +nothing better, only he had already an engagement to spend Christmas with +friends in the country, and he did not see how he could break it. She answered +that she did not wish to force herself on him, it was quite evident that he did +not wish to see her; she was deeply hurt, and she never thought he would repay +with such cruelty all her kindness. Her letter was touching, and Philip thought +he saw marks of her tears on the paper; he wrote an impulsive reply saying that +he was dreadfully sorry and imploring her to come; but it was with relief that +he received her answer in which she said that she found it would be impossible +for her to get away. Presently when her letters came his heart sank: he delayed +opening them, for he knew what they would contain, angry reproaches and +pathetic appeals; they would make him feel a perfect beast, and yet he did not +see with what he had to blame himself. He put off his answer from day to day, +and then another letter would come, saying she was ill and lonely and +miserable. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to God I’d never had anything to do with her,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +He admired Watson because he arranged these things so easily. The young man had +been engaged in an intrigue with a girl who played in touring companies, and +his account of the affair filled Philip with envious amazement. But after a +time Watson’s young affections changed, and one day he described the +rupture to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was no good making any bones about it so I just told her +I’d had enough of her,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t she make an awful scene?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“The usual thing, you know, but I told her it was no good trying on that +sort of thing with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she cry?” +</p> + +<p> +“She began to, but I can’t stand women when they cry, so I said +she’d better hook it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s sense of humour was growing keener with advancing years. +</p> + +<p> +“And did she hook it?” he asked smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there wasn’t anything else for her to do, was there?” +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the Christmas holidays approached. Mrs. Carey had been ill all +through November, and the doctor suggested that she and the Vicar should go to +Cornwall for a couple of weeks round Christmas so that she should get back her +strength. The result was that Philip had nowhere to go, and he spent Christmas +Day in his lodgings. Under Hayward’s influence he had persuaded himself +that the festivities that attend this season were vulgar and barbaric, and he +made up his mind that he would take no notice of the day; but when it came, the +jollity of all around affected him strangely. His landlady and her husband were +spending the day with a married daughter, and to save trouble Philip announced +that he would take his meals out. He went up to London towards mid-day and ate +a slice of turkey and some Christmas pudding by himself at Gatti’s, and +since he had nothing to do afterwards went to Westminster Abbey for the +afternoon service. The streets were almost empty, and the people who went along +had a preoccupied look; they did not saunter but walked with some definite goal +in view, and hardly anyone was alone. To Philip they all seemed happy. He felt +himself more solitary than he had ever done in his life. His intention had been +to kill the day somehow in the streets and then dine at a restaurant, but he +could not face again the sight of cheerful people, talking, laughing, and +making merry; so he went back to Waterloo, and on his way through the +Westminster Bridge Road bought some ham and a couple of mince pies and went +back to Barnes. He ate his food in his lonely little room and spent the evening +with a book. His depression was almost intolerable. +</p> + +<p> +When he was back at the office it made him very sore to listen to +Watson’s account of the short holiday. They had had some jolly girls +staying with them, and after dinner they had cleared out the drawing-room and +had a dance. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t get to bed till three and I don’t know how I got +there then. By George, I was squiffy.” +</p> + +<p> +At last Philip asked desperately: +</p> + +<p> +“How does one get to know people in London?” +</p> + +<p> +Watson looked at him with surprise and with a slightly contemptuous amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know, one just knows them. If you go to dances you +soon get to know as many people as you can do with.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip hated Watson, and yet he would have given anything to change places with +him. The old feeling that he had had at school came back to him, and he tried +to throw himself into the other’s skin, imagining what life would be if +he were Watson. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXVIII</h2> + +<p> +At the end of the year there was a great deal to do. Philip went to various +places with a clerk named Thompson and spent the day monotonously calling out +items of expenditure, which the other checked; and sometimes he was given long +pages of figures to add up. He had never had a head for figures, and he could +only do this slowly. Thompson grew irritated at his mistakes. His fellow-clerk +was a long, lean man of forty, sallow, with black hair and a ragged moustache; +he had hollow cheeks and deep lines on each side of his nose. He took a dislike +to Philip because he was an articled clerk. Because he could put down three +hundred guineas and keep himself for five years Philip had the chance of a +career; while he, with his experience and ability, had no possibility of ever +being more than a clerk at thirty-five shillings a week. He was a cross-grained +man, oppressed by a large family, and he resented the superciliousness which he +fancied he saw in Philip. He sneered at Philip because he was better educated +than himself, and he mocked at Philip’s pronunciation; he could not +forgive him because he spoke without a cockney accent, and when he talked to +him sarcastically exaggerated his aitches. At first his manner was merely gruff +and repellent, but as he discovered that Philip had no gift for accountancy he +took pleasure in humiliating him; his attacks were gross and silly, but they +wounded Philip, and in self-defence he assumed an attitude of superiority which +he did not feel. +</p> + +<p> +“Had a bath this morning?” Thompson said when Philip came to the +office late, for his early punctuality had not lasted. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, haven’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not a gentleman, I’m only a clerk. I have a bath on +Saturday night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose that’s why you’re more than usually disagreeable +on Monday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you condescend to do a few sums in simple addition today? I’m +afraid it’s asking a great deal from a gentleman who knows Latin and +Greek.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your attempts at sarcasm are not very happy.” +</p> + +<p> +But Philip could not conceal from himself that the other clerks, ill-paid and +uncouth, were more useful than himself. Once or twice Mr. Goodworthy grew +impatient with him. +</p> + +<p> +“You really ought to be able to do better than this by now,” he +said. “You’re not even as smart as the office-boy.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip listened sulkily. He did not like being blamed, and it humiliated him, +when, having been given accounts to make fair copies of, Mr. Goodworthy was not +satisfied and gave them to another clerk to do. At first the work had been +tolerable from its novelty, but now it grew irksome; and when he discovered +that he had no aptitude for it, he began to hate it. Often, when he should have +been doing something that was given him, he wasted his time drawing little +pictures on the office note-paper. He made sketches of Watson in every +conceivable attitude, and Watson was impressed by his talent. It occurred to +him to take the drawings home, and he came back next day with the praises of +his family. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder you didn’t become a painter,” he said. “Only +of course there’s no money in it.” +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that Mr. Carter two or three days later was dining with the Watsons, +and the sketches were shown him. The following morning he sent for Philip. +Philip saw him seldom and stood in some awe of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, young fellow, I don’t care what you do out of +office-hours, but I’ve seen those sketches of yours and they’re on +office-paper, and Mr. Goodworthy tells me you’re slack. You won’t +do any good as a chartered accountant unless you look alive. It’s a fine +profession, and we’re getting a very good class of men in it, but +it’s a profession in which you have to…” he looked for the +termination of his phrase, but could not find exactly what he wanted, so +finished rather tamely, “in which you have to look alive.” +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps Philip would have settled down but for the agreement that if he did not +like the work he could leave after a year, and get back half the money paid for +his articles. He felt that he was fit for something better than to add up +accounts, and it was humiliating that he did so ill something which seemed +contemptible. The vulgar scenes with Thompson got on his nerves. In March +Watson ended his year at the office and Philip, though he did not care for him, +saw him go with regret. The fact that the other clerks disliked them equally, +because they belonged to a class a little higher than their own, was a bond of +union. When Philip thought that he must spend over four years more with that +dreary set of fellows his heart sank. He had expected wonderful things from +London and it had given him nothing. He hated it now. He did not know a soul, +and he had no idea how he was to get to know anyone. He was tired of going +everywhere by himself. He began to feel that he could not stand much more of +such a life. He would lie in bed at night and think of the joy of never seeing +again that dingy office or any of the men in it, and of getting away from those +drab lodgings. +</p> + +<p> +A great disappointment befell him in the spring. Hayward had announced his +intention of coming to London for the season, and Philip had looked forward +very much to seeing him again. He had read so much lately and thought so much +that his mind was full of ideas which he wanted to discuss, and he knew nobody +who was willing to interest himself in abstract things. He was quite excited at +the thought of talking his fill with someone, and he was wretched when Hayward +wrote to say that the spring was lovelier than ever he had known it in Italy, +and he could not bear to tear himself away. He went on to ask why Philip did +not come. What was the use of squandering the days of his youth in an office +when the world was beautiful? The letter proceeded. +</p> + +<p> + I wonder you can bear it. I think of Fleet Street and Lincoln’s Inn now + with a shudder of disgust. There are only two things in the world that make + life worth living, love and art. I cannot imagine you sitting in an office + over a ledger, and do you wear a tall hat and an umbrella and a little black + bag? My feeling is that one should look upon life as an adventure, one should + burn with the hard, gem-like flame, and one should take risks, one should + expose oneself to danger. Why do you not go to Paris and study art? I always + thought you had talent. +</p> + +<p> +The suggestion fell in with the possibility that Philip for some time had been +vaguely turning over in his mind. It startled him at first, but he could not +help thinking of it, and in the constant rumination over it he found his only +escape from the wretchedness of his present state. They all thought he had +talent; at Heidelberg they had admired his water colours, Miss Wilkinson had +told him over and over again that they were chasing; even strangers like the +Watsons had been struck by his sketches. La Vie de Boheme had made a deep +impression on him. He had brought it to London and when he was most depressed +he had only to read a few pages to be transported into those chasing attics +where Rodolphe and the rest of them danced and loved and sang. He began to +think of Paris as before he had thought of London, but he had no fear of a +second disillusion; he yearned for romance and beauty and love, and Paris +seemed to offer them all. He had a passion for pictures, and why should he not +be able to paint as well as anybody else? He wrote to Miss Wilkinson and asked +her how much she thought he could live on in Paris. She told him that he could +manage easily on eighty pounds a year, and she enthusiastically approved of his +project. She told him he was too good to be wasted in an office. Who would be a +clerk when he might be a great artist, she asked dramatically, and she besought +Philip to believe in himself: that was the great thing. But Philip had a +cautious nature. It was all very well for Hayward to talk of taking risks, he +had three hundred a year in gilt-edged securities; Philip’s entire +fortune amounted to no more than eighteen-hundred pounds. He hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +Then it chanced that one day Mr. Goodworthy asked him suddenly if he would like +to go to Paris. The firm did the accounts for a hotel in the Faubourg St. +Honore, which was owned by an English company, and twice a year Mr. Goodworthy +and a clerk went over. The clerk who generally went happened to be ill, and a +press of work prevented any of the others from getting away. Mr. Goodworthy +thought of Philip because he could best be spared, and his articles gave him +some claim upon a job which was one of the pleasures of the business. Philip +was delighted. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll ’ave to work all day,” said Mr. Goodworthy, +“but we get our evenings to ourselves, and Paris is Paris.” He +smiled in a knowing way. “They do us very well at the hotel, and they +give us all our meals, so it don’t cost one anything. That’s the +way I like going to Paris, at other people’s expense.” +</p> + +<p> +When they arrived at Calais and Philip saw the crowd of gesticulating porters +his heart leaped. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the real thing,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +He was all eyes as the train sped through the country; he adored the sand +dunes, their colour seemed to him more lovely than anything he had ever seen; +and he was enchanted with the canals and the long lines of poplars. When they +got out of the Gare du Nord, and trundled along the cobbled streets in a +ramshackle, noisy cab, it seemed to him that he was breathing a new air so +intoxicating that he could hardly restrain himself from shouting aloud. They +were met at the door of the hotel by the manager, a stout, pleasant man, who +spoke tolerable English; Mr. Goodworthy was an old friend and he greeted them +effusively; they dined in his private room with his wife, and to Philip it +seemed that he had never eaten anything so delicious as the beefsteak aux +pommes, nor drunk such nectar as the vin ordinaire, which were set before them. +</p> + +<p> +To Mr. Goodworthy, a respectable householder with excellent principles, the +capital of France was a paradise of the joyously obscene. He asked the manager +next morning what there was to be seen that was ‘thick.’ He +thoroughly enjoyed these visits of his to Paris; he said they kept you from +growing rusty. In the evenings, after their work was over and they had dined, +he took Philip to the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergeres. His little eyes +twinkled and his face wore a sly, sensual smile as he sought out the +pornographic. He went into all the haunts which were specially arranged for the +foreigner, and afterwards said that a nation could come to no good which +permitted that sort of thing. He nudged Philip when at some revue a woman +appeared with practically nothing on, and pointed out to him the most strapping +of the courtesans who walked about the hall. It was a vulgar Paris that he +showed Philip, but Philip saw it with eyes blinded with illusion. In the early +morning he would rush out of the hotel and go to the Champs Elysees, and stand +at the Place de la Concorde. It was June, and Paris was silvery with the +delicacy of the air. Philip felt his heart go out to the people. Here he +thought at last was romance. +</p> + +<p> +They spent the inside of a week there, leaving on Sunday, and when Philip late +at night reached his dingy rooms in Barnes his mind was made up; he would +surrender his articles, and go to Paris to study art; but so that no one should +think him unreasonable he determined to stay at the office till his year was +up. He was to have his holiday during the last fortnight in August, and when he +went away he would tell Herbert Carter that he had no intention of returning. +But though Philip could force himself to go to the office every day he could +not even pretend to show any interest in the work. His mind was occupied with +the future. After the middle of July there was nothing much to do and he +escaped a good deal by pretending he had to go to lectures for his first +examination. The time he got in this way he spent in the National Gallery. He +read books about Paris and books about painting. He was steeped in Ruskin. He +read many of Vasari’s lives of the painters. He liked that story of +Correggio, and he fancied himself standing before some great masterpiece and +crying: Anch’ io son’ pittore. His hesitation had left him now, and +he was convinced that he had in him the makings of a great painter. +</p> + +<p> +“After all, I can only try,” he said to himself. “The great +thing in life is to take risks.” +</p> + +<p> +At last came the middle of August. Mr. Carter was spending the month in +Scotland, and the managing clerk was in charge of the office. Mr. Goodworthy +had seemed pleasantly disposed to Philip since their trip to Paris, and now +that Philip knew he was so soon to be free, he could look upon the funny little +man with tolerance. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going for your holiday tomorrow, Carey?” he said to +him in the evening. +</p> + +<p> +All day Philip had been telling himself that this was the last time he would +ever sit in that hateful office. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, this is the end of my year.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you’ve not done very well. Mr. Carter’s +very dissatisfied with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not nearly so dissatisfied as I am with Mr. Carter,” returned +Philip cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think you should speak like that, Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not coming back. I made the arrangement that if I didn’t +like accountancy Mr. Carter would return me half the money I paid for my +articles and I could chuck it at the end of a year.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t come to such a decision hastily.” +</p> + +<p> +“For ten months I’ve loathed it all, I’ve loathed the work, +I’ve loathed the office, I loathe London. I’d rather sweep a +crossing than spend my days here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must say, I don’t think you’re very fitted for +accountancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye,” said Philip, holding out his hand. “I want to +thank you for your kindness to me. I’m sorry if I’ve been +troublesome. I knew almost from the beginning I was no good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you really do make up your mind it is good-bye. I don’t +know what you’re going to do, but if you’re in the neighbourhood at +any time come in and see us.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip gave a little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid it sounds very rude, but I hope from the bottom of my +heart that I shall never set eyes on any of you again.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XXXIX</h2> + +<p> +The Vicar of Blackstable would have nothing to do with the scheme which Philip +laid before him. He had a great idea that one should stick to whatever one had +begun. Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing +one’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +“You chose to be an accountant of your own free will,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I just took that because it was the only chance I saw of getting up to +town. I hate London, I hate the work, and nothing will induce me to go back to +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. and Mrs. Carey were frankly shocked at Philip’s idea of being an +artist. He should not forget, they said, that his father and mother were +gentlefolk, and painting wasn’t a serious profession; it was Bohemian, +disreputable, immoral. And then Paris! +</p> + +<p> +“So long as I have anything to say in the matter, I shall not allow you +to live in Paris,” said the Vicar firmly. +</p> + +<p> +It was a sink of iniquity. The scarlet woman and she of Babylon flaunted their +vileness there; the cities of the plain were not more wicked. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been brought up like a gentleman and Christian, and I +should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I +allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I know I’m not a Christian and I’m beginning to doubt +whether I’m a gentleman,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +The dispute grew more violent. There was another year before Philip took +possession of his small inheritance, and during that time Mr. Carey proposed +only to give him an allowance if he remained at the office. It was clear to +Philip that if he meant not to continue with accountancy he must leave it while +he could still get back half the money that had been paid for his articles. The +Vicar would not listen. Philip, losing all reserve, said things to wound and +irritate. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got no right to waste my money,” he said at last. +“After all it’s my money, isn’t it? I’m not a child. +You can’t prevent me from going to Paris if I make up my mind to. You +can’t force me to go back to London.” +</p> + +<p> +“All I can do is to refuse you money unless you do what I think +fit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t care, I’ve made up my mind to go to Paris. I +shall sell my clothes, and my books, and my father’s jewellery.” +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Louisa sat by in silence, anxious and unhappy. She saw that Philip was +beside himself, and anything she said then would but increase his anger. +Finally the Vicar announced that he wished to hear nothing more about it and +with dignity left the room. For the next three days neither Philip nor he spoke +to one another. Philip wrote to Hayward for information about Paris, and made +up his mind to set out as soon as he got a reply. Mrs. Carey turned the matter +over in her mind incessantly; she felt that Philip included her in the hatred +he bore her husband, and the thought tortured her. She loved him with all her +heart. At length she spoke to him; she listened attentively while he poured out +all his disillusionment of London and his eager ambition for the future. +</p> + +<p> +“I may be no good, but at least let me have a try. I can’t be a +worse failure than I was in that beastly office. And I feel that I can paint. I +know I’ve got it in me.” +</p> + +<p> +She was not so sure as her husband that they did right in thwarting so strong +an inclination. She had read of great painters whose parents had opposed their +wish to study, the event had shown with what folly; and after all it was just +as possible for a painter to lead a virtuous life to the glory of God as for a +chartered accountant. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so afraid of your going to Paris,” she said piteously. +“It wouldn’t be so bad if you studied in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I’m going in for painting I must do it thoroughly, and +it’s only in Paris that you can get the real thing.” +</p> + +<p> +At his suggestion Mrs. Carey wrote to the solicitor, saying that Philip was +discontented with his work in London, and asking what he thought of a change. +Mr. Nixon answered as follows: +</p> + +<p> +Dear Mrs. Carey, +</p> + +<p> +I have seen Mr. Herbert Carter, and I am afraid I must tell you that Philip has +not done so well as one could have wished. If he is very strongly set against +the work, perhaps it is better that he should take the opportunity there is now +to break his articles. I am naturally very disappointed, but as you know you +can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink. +</p> + +<p> +Yours very sincerely,<br/> +  Albert Nixon. +</p> + +<p> +The letter was shown to the Vicar, but served only to increase his obstinacy. +He was willing enough that Philip should take up some other profession, he +suggested his father’s calling, medicine, but nothing would induce him to +pay an allowance if Philip went to Paris. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a mere excuse for self-indulgence and sensuality,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m interested to hear you blame self-indulgence in others,” +retorted Philip acidly. +</p> + +<p> +But by this time an answer had come from Hayward, giving the name of a hotel +where Philip could get a room for thirty francs a month and enclosing a note of +introduction to the massiere of a school. Philip read the letter to Mrs. Carey +and told her he proposed to start on the first of September. +</p> + +<p> +“But you haven’t got any money?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going into Tercanbury this afternoon to sell the +jewellery.” +</p> + +<p> +He had inherited from his father a gold watch and chain, two or three rings, +some links, and two pins. One of them was a pearl and might fetch a +considerable sum. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very different thing, what a thing’s worth and what +it’ll fetch,” said Aunt Louisa. +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled, for this was one of his uncle’s stock phrases. +</p> + +<p> +“I know, but at the worst I think I can get a hundred pounds on the lot, +and that’ll keep me till I’m twenty-one.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carey did not answer, but she went upstairs, put on her little black +bonnet, and went to the bank. In an hour she came back. She went to Philip, who +was reading in the drawing-room, and handed him an envelope. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a little present for you,” she answered, smiling shyly. +</p> + +<p> +He opened it and found eleven five-pound notes and a little paper sack bulging +with sovereigns. +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t bear to let you sell your father’s jewellery. +It’s the money I had in the bank. It comes to very nearly a hundred +pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip blushed, and, he knew not why, tears suddenly filled his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear, I can’t take it,” he said. “It’s +most awfully good of you, but I couldn’t bear to take it.” +</p> + +<p> +When Mrs. Carey was married she had three hundred pounds, and this money, +carefully watched, had been used by her to meet any unforeseen expense, any +urgent charity, or to buy Christmas and birthday presents for her husband and +for Philip. In the course of years it had diminished sadly, but it was still +with the Vicar a subject for jesting. He talked of his wife as a rich woman and +he constantly spoke of the ‘nest egg.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please take it, Philip. I’m so sorry I’ve been +extravagant, and there’s only that left. But it’ll make me so happy +if you’ll accept it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ll want it,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t think I shall. I was keeping it in case your uncle +died before me. I thought it would be useful to have a little something I could +get at immediately if I wanted it, but I don’t think I shall live very +much longer now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear, don’t say that. Why, of course you’re going to +live for ever. I can’t possibly spare you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m not sorry.” Her voice broke and she hid her eyes, +but in a moment, drying them, she smiled bravely. “At first, I used to +pray to God that He might not take me first, because I didn’t want your +uncle to be left alone, I didn’t want him to have all the suffering, but +now I know that it wouldn’t mean so much to your uncle as it would mean +to me. He wants to live more than I do, I’ve never been the wife he +wanted, and I daresay he’d marry again if anything happened to me. So I +should like to go first. You don’t think it’s selfish of me, +Philip, do you? But I couldn’t bear it if he went.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip kissed her wrinkled, thin cheek. He did not know why the sight he had of +that overwhelming love made him feel strangely ashamed. It was incomprehensible +that she should care so much for a man who was so indifferent, so selfish, so +grossly self-indulgent; and he divined dimly that in her heart she knew his +indifference and his selfishness, knew them and loved him humbly all the same. +</p> + +<p> +“You will take the money, Philip?” she said, gently stroking his +hand. “I know you can do without it, but it’ll give me so much +happiness. I’ve always wanted to do something for you. You see, I never +had a child of my own, and I’ve loved you as if you were my son. When you +were a little boy, though I knew it was wicked, I used to wish almost that you +might be ill, so that I could nurse you day and night. But you were only ill +once and then it was at school. I should so like to help you. It’s the +only chance I shall ever have. And perhaps some day when you’re a great +artist you won’t forget me, but you’ll remember that I gave you +your start.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very good of you,” said Philip. “I’m very +grateful.” A smile came into her tired eyes, a smile of pure happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m so glad.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XL</h2> + +<p> +A few days later Mrs. Carey went to the station to see Philip off. She stood at +the door of the carriage, trying to keep back her tears. Philip was restless +and eager. He wanted to be gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss me once more,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He leaned out of the window and kissed her. The train started, and she stood on +the wooden platform of the little station, waving her handkerchief till it was +out of sight. Her heart was dreadfully heavy, and the few hundred yards to the +vicarage seemed very, very long. It was natural enough that he should be eager +to go, she thought, he was a boy and the future beckoned to him; but +she—she clenched her teeth so that she should not cry. She uttered a +little inward prayer that God would guard him, and keep him out of temptation, +and give him happiness and good fortune. +</p> + +<p> +But Philip ceased to think of her a moment after he had settled down in his +carriage. He thought only of the future. He had written to Mrs. Otter, the +massiere to whom Hayward had given him an introduction, and had in his pocket +an invitation to tea on the following day. When he arrived in Paris he had his +luggage put on a cab and trundled off slowly through the gay streets, over the +bridge, and along the narrow ways of the Latin Quarter. He had taken a room at +the Hotel des Deux Ecoles, which was in a shabby street off the Boulevard du +Montparnasse; it was convenient for Amitrano’s School at which he was +going to work. A waiter took his box up five flights of stairs, and Philip was +shown into a tiny room, fusty from unopened windows, the greater part of which +was taken up by a large wooden bed with a canopy over it of red rep; there were +heavy curtains on the windows of the same dingy material; the chest of drawers +served also as a washing-stand; and there was a massive wardrobe of the style +which is connected with the good King Louis Philippe. The wall-paper was +discoloured with age; it was dark gray, and there could be vaguely seen on it +garlands of brown leaves. To Philip the room seemed quaint and charming. +</p> + +<p> +Though it was late he felt too excited to sleep and, going out, made his way +into the boulevard and walked towards the light. This led him to the station; +and the square in front of it, vivid with arc-lamps, noisy with the yellow +trams that seemed to cross it in all directions, made him laugh aloud with joy. +There were cafes all round, and by chance, thirsty and eager to get a nearer +sight of the crowd, Philip installed himself at a little table outside the Cafe +de Versailles. Every other table was taken, for it was a fine night; and Philip +looked curiously at the people, here little family groups, there a knot of men +with odd-shaped hats and beards talking loudly and gesticulating; next to him +were two men who looked like painters with women who Philip hoped were not +their lawful wives; behind him he heard Americans loudly arguing on art. His +soul was thrilled. He sat till very late, tired out but too happy to move, and +when at last he went to bed he was wide awake; he listened to the manifold +noise of Paris. +</p> + +<p> +Next day about tea-time he made his way to the Lion de Belfort, and in a new +street that led out of the Boulevard Raspail found Mrs. Otter. She was an +insignificant woman of thirty, with a provincial air and a deliberately +lady-like manner; she introduced him to her mother. He discovered presently +that she had been studying in Paris for three years and later that she was +separated from her husband. She had in her small drawing-room one or two +portraits which she had painted, and to Philip’s inexperience they seemed +extremely accomplished. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if I shall ever be able to paint as well as that,” he +said to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I expect so,” she replied, not without self-satisfaction. +“You can’t expect to do everything all at once, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +She was very kind. She gave him the address of a shop where he could get a +portfolio, drawing-paper, and charcoal. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be going to Amitrano’s about nine tomorrow, and if +you’ll be there then I’ll see that you get a good place and all +that sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +She asked him what he wanted to do, and Philip felt that he should not let her +see how vague he was about the whole matter. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, first I want to learn to draw,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad to hear you say that. People always want to do things +in such a hurry. I never touched oils till I’d been here for two years, +and look at the result.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a glance at the portrait of her mother, a sticky piece of painting +that hung over the piano. +</p> + +<p> +“And if I were you, I would be very careful about the people you get to +know. I wouldn’t mix myself up with any foreigners. I’m very +careful myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thanked her for the suggestion, but it seemed to him odd. He did not +know that he particularly wanted to be careful. +</p> + +<p> +“We live just as we would if we were in England,” said Mrs. +Otter’s mother, who till then had spoken little. “When we came here +we brought all our own furniture over.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked round the room. It was filled with a massive suite, and at the +window were the same sort of white lace curtains which Aunt Louisa put up at +the vicarage in summer. The piano was draped in Liberty silk and so was the +chimney-piece. Mrs. Otter followed his wandering eye. +</p> + +<p> +“In the evening when we close the shutters one might really feel one was +in England.” +</p> + +<p> +“And we have our meals just as if we were at home,” added her +mother. “A meat breakfast in the morning and dinner in the middle of the +day.” +</p> + +<p> +When he left Mrs. Otter Philip went to buy drawing materials; and next morning +at the stroke of nine, trying to seem self-assured, he presented himself at the +school. Mrs. Otter was already there, and she came forward with a friendly +smile. He had been anxious about the reception he would have as a nouveau, for +he had read a good deal of the rough joking to which a newcomer was exposed at +some of the studios; but Mrs. Otter had reassured him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there’s nothing like that here,” she said. “You +see, about half our students are ladies, and they set a tone to the +place.” +</p> + +<p> +The studio was large and bare, with gray walls, on which were pinned the +studies that had received prizes. A model was sitting in a chair with a loose +wrap thrown over her, and about a dozen men and women were standing about, some +talking and others still working on their sketch. It was the first rest of the +model. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better not try anything too difficult at first,” said +Mrs. Otter. “Put your easel here. You’ll find that’s the +easiest pose.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip placed an easel where she indicated, and Mrs. Otter introduced him to a +young woman who sat next to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Carey—Miss Price. Mr. Carey’s never studied before, you +won’t mind helping him a little just at first will you?” Then she +turned to the model. “La Pose.” +</p> + +<p> +The model threw aside the paper she had been reading, La Petite Republique, and +sulkily, throwing off her gown, got on to the stand. She stood, squarely on +both feet with her hands clasped behind her head. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a stupid pose,” said Miss Price. “I can’t +imagine why they chose it.” +</p> + +<p> +When Philip entered, the people in the studio had looked at him curiously, and +the model gave him an indifferent glance, but now they ceased to pay attention +to him. Philip, with his beautiful sheet of paper in front of him, stared +awkwardly at the model. He did not know how to begin. He had never seen a naked +woman before. She was not young and her breasts were shrivelled. She had +colourless, fair hair that fell over her forehead untidily, and her face was +covered with large freckles. He glanced at Miss Price’s work. She had +only been working on it two days, and it looked as though she had had trouble; +her paper was in a mess from constant rubbing out, and to Philip’s eyes +the figure looked strangely distorted. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought I could do as well as that,” he said to +himself. +</p> + +<p> +He began on the head, thinking that he would work slowly downwards, but, he +could not understand why, he found it infinitely more difficult to draw a head +from the model than to draw one from his imagination. He got into difficulties. +He glanced at Miss Price. She was working with vehement gravity. Her brow was +wrinkled with eagerness, and there was an anxious look in her eyes. It was hot +in the studio, and drops of sweat stood on her forehead. She was a girl of +twenty-six, with a great deal of dull gold hair; it was handsome hair, but it +was carelessly done, dragged back from her forehead and tied in a hurried knot. +She had a large face, with broad, flat features and small eyes; her skin was +pasty, with a singular unhealthiness of tone, and there was no colour in the +cheeks. She had an unwashed air and you could not help wondering if she slept +in her clothes. She was serious and silent. When the next pause came, she +stepped back to look at her work. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why I’m having so much bother,” she said. +“But I mean to get it right.” She turned to Philip. “How are +you getting on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” he answered, with a rueful smile. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at what he had done. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t expect to do anything that way. You must take +measurements. And you must square out your paper.” +</p> + +<p> +She showed him rapidly how to set about the business. Philip was impressed by +her earnestness, but repelled by her want of charm. He was grateful for the +hints she gave him and set to work again. Meanwhile other people had come in, +mostly men, for the women always arrived first, and the studio for the time of +year (it was early yet) was fairly full. Presently there came in a young man +with thin, black hair, an enormous nose, and a face so long that it reminded +you of a horse. He sat down next to Philip and nodded across him to Miss Price. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very late,” she said. “Are you only just +up?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was such a splendid day, I thought I’d lie in bed and think how +beautiful it was out.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled, but Miss Price took the remark seriously. +</p> + +<p> +“That seems a funny thing to do, I should have thought it would be more +to the point to get up and enjoy it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The way of the humorist is very hard,” said the young man gravely. +</p> + +<p> +He did not seem inclined to work. He looked at his canvas; he was working in +colour, and had sketched in the day before the model who was posing. He turned +to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you just come out from England?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you find your way to Amitrano’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was the only school I knew of.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you haven’t come with the idea that you will learn anything +here which will be of the smallest use to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the best school in Paris,” said Miss Price. +“It’s the only one where they take art seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +“Should art be taken seriously?” the young man asked; and since +Miss Price replied only with a scornful shrug, he added: “But the point +is, all schools are bad. They are academical, obviously. Why this is less +injurious than most is that the teaching is more incompetent than elsewhere. +Because you learn nothing….” +</p> + +<p> +“But why d’you come here then?” interrupted Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I see the better course, but do not follow it. Miss Price, who is +cultured, will remember the Latin of that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would leave me out of your conversation, Mr. Clutton,” +said Miss Price brusquely. +</p> + +<p> +“The only way to learn to paint,” he went on, imperturbable, +“is to take a studio, hire a model, and just fight it out for +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“That seems a simple thing to do,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“It only needs money,” replied Clutton. +</p> + +<p> +He began to paint, and Philip looked at him from the corner of his eye. He was +long and desperately thin; his huge bones seemed to protrude from his body; his +elbows were so sharp that they appeared to jut out through the arms of his +shabby coat. His trousers were frayed at the bottom, and on each of his boots +was a clumsy patch. Miss Price got up and went over to Philip’s easel. +</p> + +<p> +“If Mr. Clutton will hold his tongue for a moment, I’ll just help +you a little,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Price dislikes me because I have humour,” said Clutton, +looking meditatively at his canvas, “but she detests me because I have +genius.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke with solemnity, and his colossal, misshapen nose made what he said +very quaint. Philip was obliged to laugh, but Miss Price grew darkly red with +anger. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re the only person who has ever accused you of genius.” +</p> + +<p> +“Also I am the only person whose opinion is of the least value to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price began to criticise what Philip had done. She talked glibly of +anatomy and construction, planes and lines, and of much else which Philip did +not understand. She had been at the studio a long time and knew the main points +which the masters insisted upon, but though she could show what was wrong with +Philip’s work she could not tell him how to put it right. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awfully kind of you to take so much trouble with me,” +said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s nothing,” she answered, flushing awkwardly. +“People did the same for me when I first came, I’d do it for +anyone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Price wants to indicate that she is giving you the advantage of her +knowledge from a sense of duty rather than on account of any charms of your +person,” said Clutton. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price gave him a furious look, and went back to her own drawing. The clock +struck twelve, and the model with a cry of relief stepped down from the stand. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price gathered up her things. +</p> + +<p> +“Some of us go to Gravier’s for lunch,” she said to Philip, +with a look at Clutton. “I always go home myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take you to Gravier’s if you like,” said Clutton. +</p> + +<p> +Philip thanked him and made ready to go. On his way out Mrs. Otter asked him +how he had been getting on. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Fanny Price help you?” she asked. “I put you there +because I know she can do it if she likes. She’s a disagreeable, +ill-natured girl, and she can’t draw herself at all, but she knows the +ropes, and she can be useful to a newcomer if she cares to take the +trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +On the way down the street Clutton said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve made an impression on Fanny Price. You’d better look +out.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip laughed. He had never seen anyone on whom he wished less to make an +impression. They came to the cheap little restaurant at which several of the +students ate, and Clutton sat down at a table at which three or four men were +already seated. For a franc, they got an egg, a plate of meat, cheese, and a +small bottle of wine. Coffee was extra. They sat on the pavement, and yellow +trams passed up and down the boulevard with a ceaseless ringing of bells. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, what’s your name?” said Clutton, as they took +their seats. +</p> + +<p> +“Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Allow me to introduce an old and trusted friend, Carey by name,” +said Clutton gravely. “Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Lawson.” +</p> + +<p> +They laughed and went on with their conversation. They talked of a thousand +things, and they all talked at once. No one paid the smallest attention to +anyone else. They talked of the places they had been to in the summer, of +studios, of the various schools; they mentioned names which were unfamiliar to +Philip, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas. Philip listened with all his +ears, and though he felt a little out of it, his heart leaped with exultation. +The time flew. When Clutton got up he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I expect you’ll find me here this evening if you care to come. +You’ll find this about the best place for getting dyspepsia at the lowest +cost in the Quarter.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLI</h2> + +<p> +Philip walked down the Boulevard du Montparnasse. It was not at all like the +Paris he had seen in the spring during his visit to do the accounts of the +Hotel St. Georges—he thought already of that part of his life with a +shudder—but reminded him of what he thought a provincial town must be. +There was an easy-going air about it, and a sunny spaciousness which invited +the mind to day-dreaming. The trimness of the trees, the vivid whiteness of the +houses, the breadth, were very agreeable; and he felt himself already +thoroughly at home. He sauntered along, staring at the people; there seemed an +elegance about the most ordinary, workmen with their broad red sashes and their +wide trousers, little soldiers in dingy, charming uniforms. He came presently +to the Avenue de l’Observatoire, and he gave a sigh of pleasure at the +magnificent, yet so graceful, vista. He came to the gardens of the Luxembourg: +children were playing, nurses with long ribbons walked slowly two by two, busy +men passed through with satchels under their arms, youths strangely dressed. +The scene was formal and dainty; nature was arranged and ordered, but so +exquisitely, that nature unordered and unarranged seemed barbaric. Philip was +enchanted. It excited him to stand on that spot of which he had read so much; +it was classic ground to him; and he felt the awe and the delight which some +old don might feel when for the first time he looked on the smiling plain of +Sparta. +</p> + +<p> +As he wandered he chanced to see Miss Price sitting by herself on a bench. He +hesitated, for he did not at that moment want to see anyone, and her uncouth +way seemed out of place amid the happiness he felt around him; but he had +divined her sensitiveness to affront, and since she had seen him thought it +would be polite to speak to her. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing here?” she said, as he came up. +</p> + +<p> +“Enjoying myself. Aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I come here every day from four to five. I don’t think one +does any good if one works straight through.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I sit down for a minute?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“If you want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“That doesn’t sound very cordial,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not much of a one for saying pretty things.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, a little disconcerted, was silent as he lit a cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Clutton say anything about my work?” she asked suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t think he did,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s no good, you know. He thinks he’s a genius, but he +isn’t. He’s too lazy, for one thing. Genius is an infinite capacity +for taking pains. The only thing is to peg away. If one only makes up +one’s mind badly enough to do a thing one can’t help doing +it.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke with a passionate strenuousness which was rather striking. She wore a +sailor hat of black straw, a white blouse which was not quite clean, and a +brown skirt. She had no gloves on, and her hands wanted washing. She was so +unattractive that Philip wished he had not begun to talk to her. He could not +make out whether she wanted him to stay or go. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do anything I can for you,” she said all at once, +without reference to anything that had gone before. “I know how hard it +is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much,” said Philip, then in a moment: +“Won’t you come and have tea with me somewhere?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him quickly and flushed. When she reddened her pasty skin +acquired a curiously mottled look, like strawberries and cream that had gone +bad. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thanks. What d’you think I want tea for? I’ve only just +had lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it would pass the time,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“If you find it long you needn’t bother about me, you know. I +don’t mind being left alone.” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment two men passed, in brown velveteens, enormous trousers, and +basque caps. They were young, but both wore beards. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, are those art-students?” said Philip. “They might +have stepped out of the Vie de Boheme.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re Americans,” said Miss Price scornfully. +“Frenchmen haven’t worn things like that for thirty years, but the +Americans from the Far West buy those clothes and have themselves photographed +the day after they arrive in Paris. That’s about as near to art as they +ever get. But it doesn’t matter to them, they’ve all got +money.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip liked the daring picturesqueness of the Americans’ costume; he +thought it showed the romantic spirit. Miss Price asked him the time. +</p> + +<p> +“I must be getting along to the studio,” she said. “Are you +going to the sketch classes?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not know anything about them, and she told him that from five to six +every evening a model sat, from whom anyone who liked could go and draw at the +cost of fifty centimes. They had a different model every day, and it was very +good practice. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose you’re good enough yet for that. You’d +better wait a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why I shouldn’t try. I haven’t got +anything else to do.” +</p> + +<p> +They got up and walked to the studio. Philip could not tell from her manner +whether Miss Price wished him to walk with her or preferred to walk alone. He +remained from sheer embarrassment, not knowing how to leave her; but she would +not talk; she answered his questions in an ungracious manner. +</p> + +<p> +A man was standing at the studio door with a large dish into which each person +as he went in dropped his half franc. The studio was much fuller than it had +been in the morning, and there was not the preponderance of English and +Americans; nor were women there in so large a proportion. Philip felt the +assemblage was more the sort of thing he had expected. It was very warm, and +the air quickly grew fetid. It was an old man who sat this time, with a vast +gray beard, and Philip tried to put into practice the little he had learned in +the morning; but he made a poor job of it; he realised that he could not draw +nearly as well as he thought. He glanced enviously at one or two sketches of +men who sat near him, and wondered whether he would ever be able to use the +charcoal with that mastery. The hour passed quickly. Not wishing to press +himself upon Miss Price he sat down at some distance from her, and at the end, +as he passed her on his way out, she asked him brusquely how he had got on. +</p> + +<p> +“Not very well,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’d condescended to come and sit near me I could have given +you some hints. I suppose you thought yourself too grand.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it wasn’t that. I was afraid you’d think me a +nuisance.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I do that I’ll tell you sharp enough.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip saw that in her uncouth way she was offering him help. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, tomorrow I’ll just force myself upon you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +Philip went out and wondered what he should do with himself till dinner. He was +eager to do something characteristic. Absinthe! of course it was indicated, and +so, sauntering towards the station, he seated himself outside a cafe and +ordered it. He drank with nausea and satisfaction. He found the taste +disgusting, but the moral effect magnificent; he felt every inch an +art-student; and since he drank on an empty stomach his spirits presently grew +very high. He watched the crowds, and felt all men were his brothers. He was +happy. When he reached Gravier’s the table at which Clutton sat was full, +but as soon as he saw Philip limping along he called out to him. They made +room. The dinner was frugal, a plate of soup, a dish of meat, fruit, cheese, +and half a bottle of wine; but Philip paid no attention to what he ate. He took +note of the men at the table. Flanagan was there again: he was an American, a +short, snub-nosed youth with a jolly face and a laughing mouth. He wore a +Norfolk jacket of bold pattern, a blue stock round his neck, and a tweed cap of +fantastic shape. At that time impressionism reigned in the Latin Quarter, but +its victory over the older schools was still recent; and Carolus-Duran, +Bouguereau, and their like were set up against Manet, Monet, and Degas. To +appreciate these was still a sign of grace. Whistler was an influence strong +with the English and his compatriots, and the discerning collected Japanese +prints. The old masters were tested by new standards. The esteem in which +Raphael had been for centuries held was a matter of derision to wise young men. +They offered to give all his works for Velasquez’ head of Philip IV in +the National Gallery. Philip found that a discussion on art was raging. Lawson, +whom he had met at luncheon, sat opposite to him. He was a thin youth with a +freckled face and red hair. He had very bright green eyes. As Philip sat down +he fixed them on him and remarked suddenly: +</p> + +<p> +“Raphael was only tolerable when he painted other people’s +pictures. When he painted Peruginos or Pinturichios he was charming; when he +painted Raphaels he was,” with a scornful shrug, “Raphael.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson spoke so aggressively that Philip was taken aback, but he was not +obliged to answer because Flanagan broke in impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, to hell with art!” he cried. “Let’s get +ginny.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were ginny last night, Flanagan,” said Lawson. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing to what I mean to be tonight,” he answered. “Fancy +being in Pa-ris and thinking of nothing but art all the time.” He spoke +with a broad Western accent. “My, it is good to be alive.” He +gathered himself together and then banged his fist on the table. “To hell +with art, I say.” +</p> + +<p> +“You not only say it, but you say it with tiresome iteration,” said +Clutton severely. +</p> + +<p> +There was another American at the table. He was dressed like those fine fellows +whom Philip had seen that afternoon in the Luxembourg. He had a handsome face, +thin, ascetic, with dark eyes; he wore his fantastic garb with the dashing air +of a buccaneer. He had a vast quantity of dark hair which fell constantly over +his eyes, and his most frequent gesture was to throw back his head dramatically +to get some long wisp out of the way. He began to talk of the Olympia by Manet, +which then hung in the Luxembourg. +</p> + +<p> +“I stood in front of it for an hour today, and I tell you it’s not +a good picture.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson put down his knife and fork. His green eyes flashed fire, he gasped with +rage; but he could be seen imposing calm upon himself. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very interesting to hear the mind of the untutored +savage,” he said. “Will you tell us why it isn’t a good +picture?” +</p> + +<p> +Before the American could answer someone else broke in vehemently. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say you can look at the painting of that flesh and +say it’s not good?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t say that. I think the right breast is very well +painted.” +</p> + +<p> +“The right breast be damned,” shouted Lawson. “The whole +thing’s a miracle of painting.” +</p> + +<p> +He began to describe in detail the beauties of the picture, but at this table +at Gravier’s they who spoke at length spoke for their own edification. No +one listened to him. The American interrupted angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say you think the head’s good?” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson, white with passion now, began to defend the head; but Clutton, who had +been sitting in silence with a look on his face of good-humoured scorn, broke +in. +</p> + +<p> +“Give him the head. We don’t want the head. It doesn’t affect +the picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, I’ll give you the head,” cried Lawson. +“Take the head and be damned to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about the black line?” cried the American, triumphantly +pushing back a wisp of hair which nearly fell in his soup. “You +don’t see a black line round objects in nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, God, send down fire from heaven to consume the blasphemer,” +said Lawson. “What has nature got to do with it? No one knows +what’s in nature and what isn’t! The world sees nature through the +eyes of the artist. Why, for centuries it saw horses jumping a fence with all +their legs extended, and by Heaven, sir, they were extended. It saw shadows +black until Monet discovered they were coloured, and by Heaven, sir, they were +black. If we choose to surround objects with a black line, the world will see +the black line, and there will be a black line; and if we paint grass red and +cows blue, it’ll see them red and blue, and, by Heaven, they will be red +and blue.” +</p> + +<p> +“To hell with art,” murmured Flanagan. “I want to get +ginny.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson took no notice of the interruption. +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here, when Olympia was shown at the Salon, Zola—amid the +jeers of the Philistines and the hisses of the pompiers, the academicians, and +the public, Zola said: ‘I look forward to the day when Manet’s +picture will hang in the Louvre opposite the Odalisque of Ingres, and it will +not be the Odalisque which will gain by comparison.’ It’ll be +there. Every day I see the time grow nearer. In ten years the Olympia will be +in the Louvre.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” shouted the American, using both hands now with a sudden +desperate attempt to get his hair once for all out of the way. “In ten +years that picture will be dead. It’s only a fashion of the moment. No +picture can live that hasn’t got something which that picture misses by a +million miles.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Great art can’t exist without a moral element.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh God!” cried Lawson furiously. “I knew it was that. He +wants morality.” He joined his hands and held them towards heaven in +supplication. “Oh, Christopher Columbus, Christopher Columbus, what did +you do when you discovered America?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ruskin says…” +</p> + +<p> +But before he could add another word, Clutton rapped with the handle of his +knife imperiously on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen,” he said in a stern voice, and his huge nose positively +wrinkled with passion, “a name has been mentioned which I never thought +to hear again in decent society. Freedom of speech is all very well, but we +must observe the limits of common propriety. You may talk of Bouguereau if you +will: there is a cheerful disgustingness in the sound which excites laughter; +but let us not sully our chaste lips with the names of J. Ruskin, G. F. Watts, +or E. B. Jones.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was Ruskin anyway?” asked Flanagan. +</p> + +<p> +“He was one of the Great Victorians. He was a master of English +style.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ruskin’s style—a thing of shreds and purple patches,” +said Lawson. “Besides, damn the Great Victorians. Whenever I open a paper +and see Death of a Great Victorian, I thank Heaven there’s one more of +them gone. Their only talent was longevity, and no artist should be allowed to +live after he’s forty; by then a man has done his best work, all he does +after that is repetition. Don’t you think it was the greatest luck in the +world for them that Keats, Shelley, Bonnington, and Byron died early? What a +genius we should think Swinburne if he had perished on the day the first series +of Poems and Ballads was published!” +</p> + +<p> +The suggestion pleased, for no one at the table was more than twenty-four, and +they threw themselves upon it with gusto. They were unanimous for once. They +elaborated. Someone proposed a vast bonfire made out of the works of the Forty +Academicians into which the Great Victorians might be hurled on their fortieth +birthday. The idea was received with acclamation. Carlyle and Ruskin, Tennyson, +Browning, G. F. Watts, E. B. Jones, Dickens, Thackeray, they were hurried into +the flames; Mr. Gladstone, John Bright, and Cobden; there was a moment’s +discussion about George Meredith, but Matthew Arnold and Emerson were given up +cheerfully. At last came Walter Pater. +</p> + +<p> +“Not Walter Pater,” murmured Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Lawson stared at him for a moment with his green eyes and then nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re quite right, Walter Pater is the only justification for +Mona Lisa. D’you know Cronshaw? He used to know Pater.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s Cronshaw?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Cronshaw’s a poet. He lives here. Let’s go to the +Lilas.” +</p> + +<p> +La Closerie des Lilas was a cafe to which they often went in the evening after +dinner, and here Cronshaw was invariably to be found between the hours of nine +at night and two in the morning. But Flanagan had had enough of intellectual +conversation for one evening, and when Lawson made his suggestion, turned to +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh gee, let’s go where there are girls,” he said. +“Come to the Gaite Montparnasse, and we’ll get ginny.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather go and see Cronshaw and keep sober,” laughed +Philip. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLII</h2> + +<p> +There was a general disturbance. Flanagan and two or three more went on to the +music-hall, while Philip walked slowly with Clutton and Lawson to the Closerie +des Lilas. +</p> + +<p> +“You must go to the Gaite Montparnasse,” said Lawson to him. +“It’s one of the loveliest things in Paris. I’m going to +paint it one of these days.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, influenced by Hayward, looked upon music-halls with scornful eyes, but +he had reached Paris at a time when their artistic possibilities were just +discovered. The peculiarities of lighting, the masses of dingy red and +tarnished gold, the heaviness of the shadows and the decorative lines, offered +a new theme; and half the studios in the Quarter contained sketches made in one +or other of the local theatres. Men of letters, following in the +painters’ wake, conspired suddenly to find artistic value in the turns; +and red-nosed comedians were lauded to the skies for their sense of character; +fat female singers, who had bawled obscurely for twenty years, were discovered +to possess inimitable drollery; there were those who found an aesthetic delight +in performing dogs; while others exhausted their vocabulary to extol the +distinction of conjurers and trick-cyclists. The crowd too, under another +influence, was become an object of sympathetic interest. With Hayward, Philip +had disdained humanity in the mass; he adopted the attitude of one who wraps +himself in solitariness and watches with disgust the antics of the vulgar; but +Clutton and Lawson talked of the multitude with enthusiasm. They described the +seething throng that filled the various fairs of Paris, the sea of faces, half +seen in the glare of acetylene, half hidden in the darkness, and the blare of +trumpets, the hooting of whistles, the hum of voices. What they said was new +and strange to Philip. They told him about Cronshaw. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever read any of his work?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“It came out in The Yellow Book.” +</p> + +<p> +They looked upon him, as painters often do writers, with contempt because he +was a layman, with tolerance because he practised an art, and with awe because +he used a medium in which themselves felt ill-at-ease. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s an extraordinary fellow. You’ll find him a bit +disappointing at first, he only comes out at his best when he’s +drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the nuisance is,” added Clutton, “that it takes him a +devil of a time to get drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +When they arrived at the cafe Lawson told Philip that they would have to go in. +There was hardly a bite in the autumn air, but Cronshaw had a morbid fear of +draughts and even in the warmest weather sat inside. +</p> + +<p> +“He knows everyone worth knowing,” Lawson explained. “He knew +Pater and Oscar Wilde, and he knows Mallarme and all those fellows.” +</p> + +<p> +The object of their search sat in the most sheltered corner of the cafe, with +his coat on and the collar turned up. He wore his hat pressed well down on his +forehead so that he should avoid cold air. He was a big man, stout but not +obese, with a round face, a small moustache, and little, rather stupid eyes. +His head did not seem quite big enough for his body. It looked like a pea +uneasily poised on an egg. He was playing dominoes with a Frenchman, and +greeted the new-comers with a quiet smile; he did not speak, but as if to make +room for them pushed away the little pile of saucers on the table which +indicated the number of drinks he had already consumed. He nodded to Philip +when he was introduced to him, and went on with the game. Philip’s +knowledge of the language was small, but he knew enough to tell that Cronshaw, +although he had lived in Paris for several years, spoke French execrably. +</p> + +<p> +At last he leaned back with a smile of triumph. +</p> + +<p> +“Je vous ai battu,” he said, with an abominable accent. +“Garcong!” +</p> + +<p> +He called the waiter and turned to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Just out from England? See any cricket?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was a little confused at the unexpected question. +</p> + +<p> +“Cronshaw knows the averages of every first-class cricketer for the last +twenty years,” said Lawson, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +The Frenchman left them for friends at another table, and Cronshaw, with the +lazy enunciation which was one of his peculiarities, began to discourse on the +relative merits of Kent and Lancashire. He told them of the last test match he +had seen and described the course of the game wicket by wicket. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the only thing I miss in Paris,” he said, as he +finished the bock which the waiter had brought. “You don’t get any +cricket.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was disappointed, and Lawson, pardonably anxious to show off one of the +celebrities of the Quarter, grew impatient. Cronshaw was taking his time to +wake up that evening, though the saucers at his side indicated that he had at +least made an honest attempt to get drunk. Clutton watched the scene with +amusement. He fancied there was something of affectation in Cronshaw’s +minute knowledge of cricket; he liked to tantalise people by talking to them of +things that obviously bored them; Clutton threw in a question. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen Mallarme lately?” +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw looked at him slowly, as if he were turning the inquiry over in his +mind, and before he answered rapped on the marble table with one of the +saucers. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring my bottle of whiskey,” he called out. He turned again to +Philip. “I keep my own bottle of whiskey. I can’t afford to pay +fifty centimes for every thimbleful.” +</p> + +<p> +The waiter brought the bottle, and Cronshaw held it up to the light. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve been drinking it. Waiter, who’s been helping himself +to my whiskey?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mais personne, Monsieur Cronshaw.” +</p> + +<p> +“I made a mark on it last night, and look at it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur made a mark, but he kept on drinking after that. At that rate +Monsieur wastes his time in making marks.” +</p> + +<p> +The waiter was a jovial fellow and knew Cronshaw intimately. Cronshaw gazed at +him. +</p> + +<p> +“If you give me your word of honour as a nobleman and a gentleman that +nobody but I has been drinking my whiskey, I’ll accept your +statement.” +</p> + +<p> +This remark, translated literally into the crudest French, sounded very funny, +and the lady at the comptoir could not help laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Il est impayable,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw, hearing her, turned a sheepish eye upon her; she was stout, matronly, +and middle-aged; and solemnly kissed his hand to her. She shrugged her +shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Fear not, madam,” he said heavily. “I have passed the age +when I am tempted by forty-five and gratitude.” +</p> + +<p> +He poured himself out some whiskey and water, and slowly drank it. He wiped his +mouth with the back of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“He talked very well.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson and Clutton knew that Cronshaw’s remark was an answer to the +question about Mallarme. Cronshaw often went to the gatherings on Tuesday +evenings when the poet received men of letters and painters, and discoursed +with subtle oratory on any subject that was suggested to him. Cronshaw had +evidently been there lately. +</p> + +<p> +“He talked very well, but he talked nonsense. He talked about art as +though it were the most important thing in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it isn’t, what are we here for?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“What you’re here for I don’t know. It is no business of +mine. But art is a luxury. Men attach importance only to self-preservation and +the propagation of their species. It is only when these instincts are satisfied +that they consent to occupy themselves with the entertainment which is provided +for them by writers, painters, and poets.” +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the +problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved +conversation because it made him thirsty. +</p> + +<p> +Then he said: “I wrote a poem yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +Without being asked he began to recite it, very slowly, marking the rhythm with +an extended forefinger. It was possibly a very fine poem, but at that moment a +young woman came in. She had scarlet lips, and it was plain that the vivid +colour of her cheeks was not due to the vulgarity of nature; she had blackened +her eyelashes and eyebrows, and painted both eyelids a bold blue, which was +continued to a triangle at the corner of the eyes. It was fantastic and +amusing. Her dark hair was done over her ears in the fashion made popular by +Mlle. Cleo de Merode. Philip’s eyes wandered to her, and Cronshaw, having +finished the recitation of his verses, smiled upon him indulgently. +</p> + +<p> +“You were not listening,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not blame you, for you have given an apt illustration of the +statement I just made. What is art beside love? I respect and applaud your +indifference to fine poetry when you can contemplate the meretricious charms of +this young person.” +</p> + +<p> +She passed by the table at which they were sitting, and he took her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and sit by my side, dear child, and let us play the divine comedy +of love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fichez-moi la paix,” she said, and pushing him on one side +continued her perambulation. +</p> + +<p> +“Art,” he continued, with a wave of the hand, “is merely the +refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and +women, to escape the tediousness of life.” +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw filled his glass again, and began to talk at length. He spoke with +rotund delivery. He chose his words carefully. He mingled wisdom and nonsense +in the most astounding manner, gravely making fun of his hearers at one moment, +and at the next playfully giving them sound advice. He talked of art, and +literature, and life. He was by turns devout and obscene, merry and lachrymose. +He grew remarkably drunk, and then he began to recite poetry, his own and +Milton’s, his own and Shelley’s, his own and Kit Marlowe’s. +</p> + +<p> +At last Lawson, exhausted, got up to go home. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall go too,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Clutton, the most silent of them all, remained behind listening, with a +sardonic smile on his lips, to Cronshaw’s maunderings. Lawson accompanied +Philip to his hotel and then bade him good-night. But when Philip got to bed he +could not sleep. All these new ideas that had been flung before him carelessly +seethed in his brain. He was tremendously excited. He felt in himself great +powers. He had never before been so self-confident. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I shall be a great artist,” he said to himself. “I +feel it in me.” +</p> + +<p> +A thrill passed through him as another thought came, but even to himself he +would not put it into words: +</p> + +<p> +“By George, I believe I’ve got genius.” +</p> + +<p> +He was in fact very drunk, but as he had not taken more than one glass of beer, +it could have been due only to a more dangerous intoxicant than alcohol. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLIII</h2> + +<p> +On Tuesdays and Fridays masters spent the morning at Amitrano’s, +criticising the work done. In France the painter earns little unless he paints +portraits and is patronised by rich Americans; and men of reputation are glad +to increase their incomes by spending two or three hours once a week at one of +the numerous studios where art is taught. Tuesday was the day upon which Michel +Rollin came to Amitrano’s. He was an elderly man, with a white beard and +a florid complexion, who had painted a number of decorations for the State, but +these were an object of derision to the students he instructed: he was a +disciple of Ingres, impervious to the progress of art and angrily impatient +with that tas de farceurs whose names were Manet, Degas, Monet, and Sisley; but +he was an excellent teacher, helpful, polite, and encouraging. Foinet, on the +other hand, who visited the studio on Fridays, was a difficult man to get on +with. He was a small, shrivelled person, with bad teeth and a bilious air, an +untidy gray beard, and savage eyes; his voice was high and his tone sarcastic. +He had had pictures bought by the Luxembourg, and at twenty-five looked forward +to a great career; but his talent was due to youth rather than to personality, +and for twenty years he had done nothing but repeat the landscape which had +brought him his early success. When he was reproached with monotony, he +answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Corot only painted one thing. Why shouldn’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +He was envious of everyone else’s success, and had a peculiar, personal +loathing of the impressionists; for he looked upon his own failure as due to +the mad fashion which had attracted the public, sale bete, to their works. The +genial disdain of Michel Rollin, who called them impostors, was answered by him +with vituperation, of which crapule and canaille were the least violent items; +he amused himself with abuse of their private lives, and with sardonic humour, +with blasphemous and obscene detail, attacked the legitimacy of their births +and the purity of their conjugal relations: he used an Oriental imagery and an +Oriental emphasis to accentuate his ribald scorn. Nor did he conceal his +contempt for the students whose work he examined. By them he was hated and +feared; the women by his brutal sarcasm he reduced often to tears, which again +aroused his ridicule; and he remained at the studio, notwithstanding the +protests of those who suffered too bitterly from his attacks, because there +could be no doubt that he was one of the best masters in Paris. Sometimes the +old model who kept the school ventured to remonstrate with him, but his +expostulations quickly gave way before the violent insolence of the painter to +abject apologies. +</p> + +<p> +It was Foinet with whom Philip first came in contact. He was already in the +studio when Philip arrived. He went round from easel to easel, with Mrs. Otter, +the massiere, by his side to interpret his remarks for the benefit of those who +could not understand French. Fanny Price, sitting next to Philip, was working +feverishly. Her face was sallow with nervousness, and every now and then she +stopped to wipe her hands on her blouse; for they were hot with anxiety. +Suddenly she turned to Philip with an anxious look, which she tried to hide by +a sullen frown. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you think it’s good?” she asked, nodding at her +drawing. +</p> + +<p> +Philip got up and looked at it. He was astounded; he felt she must have no eye +at all; the thing was hopelessly out of drawing. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could draw half as well myself,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t expect to, you’ve only just come. It’s a bit +too much to expect that you should draw as well as I do. I’ve been here +two years.” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny Price puzzled Philip. Her conceit was stupendous. Philip had already +discovered that everyone in the studio cordially disliked her; and it was no +wonder, for she seemed to go out of her way to wound people. +</p> + +<p> +“I complained to Mrs. Otter about Foinet,” she said now. “The +last two weeks he hasn’t looked at my drawings. He spends about half an +hour on Mrs. Otter because she’s the massiere. After all I pay as much as +anybody else, and I suppose my money’s as good as theirs. I don’t +see why I shouldn’t get as much attention as anybody else.” +</p> + +<p> +She took up her charcoal again, but in a moment put it down with a groan. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t do any more now. I’m so frightfully nervous.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at Foinet, who was coming towards them with Mrs. Otter. Mrs. Otter, +meek, mediocre, and self-satisfied, wore an air of importance. Foinet sat down +at the easel of an untidy little Englishwoman called Ruth Chalice. She had the +fine black eyes, languid but passionate, the thin face, ascetic but sensual, +the skin like old ivory, which under the influence of Burne-Jones were +cultivated at that time by young ladies in Chelsea. Foinet seemed in a pleasant +mood; he did not say much to her, but with quick, determined strokes of her +charcoal pointed out her errors. Miss Chalice beamed with pleasure when he +rose. He came to Clutton, and by this time Philip was nervous too but Mrs. +Otter had promised to make things easy for him. Foinet stood for a moment in +front of Clutton’s work, biting his thumb silently, then absent-mindedly +spat out upon the canvas the little piece of skin which he had bitten off. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a fine line,” he said at last, indicating with his +thumb what pleased him. “You’re beginning to learn to draw.” +</p> + +<p> +Clutton did not answer, but looked at the master with his usual air of sardonic +indifference to the world’s opinion. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m beginning to think you have at least a trace of talent.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Otter, who did not like Clutton, pursed her lips. She did not see anything +out of the way in his work. Foinet sat down and went into technical details. +Mrs. Otter grew rather tired of standing. Clutton did not say anything, but +nodded now and then, and Foinet felt with satisfaction that he grasped what he +said and the reasons of it; most of them listened to him, but it was clear they +never understood. Then Foinet got up and came to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“He only arrived two days ago,” Mrs. Otter hurried to explain. +“He’s a beginner. He’s never studied before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ca se voit,” the master said. “One sees that.” +</p> + +<p> +He passed on, and Mrs. Otter murmured to him: +</p> + +<p> +“This is the young lady I told you about.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her as though she were some repulsive animal, and his voice grew +more rasping. +</p> + +<p> +“It appears that you do not think I pay enough attention to you. You have +been complaining to the massiere. Well, show me this work to which you wish me +to give attention.” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny Price coloured. The blood under her unhealthy skin seemed to be of a +strange purple. Without answering she pointed to the drawing on which she had +been at work since the beginning of the week. Foinet sat down. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you wish me to say to you? Do you wish me to tell you it +is good? It isn’t. Do you wish me to tell you it is well drawn? It +isn’t. Do you wish me to say it has merit? It hasn’t. Do you wish +me to show you what is wrong with it? It is all wrong. Do you wish me to tell +you what to do with it? Tear it up. Are you satisfied now?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price became very white. She was furious because he had said all this +before Mrs. Otter. Though she had been in France so long and could understand +French well enough, she could hardly speak two words. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got no right to treat me like that. My money’s as good +as anyone else’s. I pay him to teach me. That’s not teaching +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does she say? What does she say?” asked Foinet. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Otter hesitated to translate, and Miss Price repeated in execrable French. +</p> + +<p> +“Je vous paye pour m’apprendre.” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes flashed with rage, he raised his voice and shook his fist. +</p> + +<p> +“Mais, nom de Dieu, I can’t teach you. I could more easily teach a +camel.” He turned to Mrs. Otter. “Ask her, does she do this for +amusement, or does she expect to earn money by it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to earn my living as an artist,” Miss Price +answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is my duty to tell you that you are wasting your time. It would +not matter that you have no talent, talent does not run about the streets in +these days, but you have not the beginning of an aptitude. How long have you +been here? A child of five after two lessons would draw better than you do. I +only say one thing to you, give up this hopeless attempt. You’re more +likely to earn your living as a bonne a tout faire than as a painter. +Look.” +</p> + +<p> +He seized a piece of charcoal, and it broke as he applied it to the paper. He +cursed, and with the stump drew great firm lines. He drew rapidly and spoke at +the same time, spitting out the words with venom. +</p> + +<p> +“Look, those arms are not the same length. That knee, it’s +grotesque. I tell you a child of five. You see, she’s not standing on her +legs. That foot!” +</p> + +<p> +With each word the angry pencil made a mark, and in a moment the drawing upon +which Fanny Price had spent so much time and eager trouble was unrecognisable, +a confusion of lines and smudges. At last he flung down the charcoal and stood +up. +</p> + +<p> +“Take my advice, Mademoiselle, try dressmaking.” He looked at his +watch. “It’s twelve. A la semaine prochaine, messieurs.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price gathered up her things slowly. Philip waited behind after the others +to say to her something consolatory. He could think of nothing but: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m awfully sorry. What a beast that man is!” +</p> + +<p> +She turned on him savagely. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that what you’re waiting about for? When I want your sympathy +I’ll ask for it. Please get out of my way.” +</p> + +<p> +She walked past him, out of the studio, and Philip, with a shrug of the +shoulders, limped along to Gravier’s for luncheon. +</p> + +<p> +“It served her right,” said Lawson, when Philip told him what had +happened. “Ill-tempered slut.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson was very sensitive to criticism and, in order to avoid it, never went to +the studio when Foinet was coming. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want other people’s opinion of my work,” he +said. “I know myself if it’s good or bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you don’t want other people’s bad opinion of your +work,” answered Clutton dryly. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon Philip thought he would go to the Luxembourg to see the +pictures, and walking through the garden he saw Fanny Price sitting in her +accustomed seat. He was sore at the rudeness with which she had met his +well-meant attempt to say something pleasant, and passed as though he had not +caught sight of her. But she got up at once and came towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you trying to cut me?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course not. I thought perhaps you didn’t want to be spoken +to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to have a look at the Manet, I’ve heard so much about +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like me to come with you? I know the Luxembourg rather well. I +could show you one or two good things.” +</p> + +<p> +He understood that, unable to bring herself to apologise directly, she made +this offer as amends. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awfully kind of you. I should like it very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t say yes if you’d rather go alone,” she +said suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked towards the gallery. Caillebotte’s collection had lately been +placed on view, and the student for the first time had the opportunity to +examine at his ease the works of the impressionists. Till then it had been +possible to see them only at Durand-Ruel’s shop in the Rue Lafitte (and +the dealer, unlike his fellows in England, who adopt towards the painter an +attitude of superiority, was always pleased to show the shabbiest student +whatever he wanted to see), or at his private house, to which it was not +difficult to get a card of admission on Tuesdays, and where you might see +pictures of world-wide reputation. Miss Price led Philip straight up to +Manet’s Olympia. He looked at it in astonished silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like it?” asked Miss Price. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” he answered helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“You can take it from me that it’s the best thing in the gallery +except perhaps Whistler’s portrait of his mother.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a certain time to contemplate the masterpiece and then took him to +a picture representing a railway-station. +</p> + +<p> +“Look, here’s a Monet,” she said. “It’s the Gare +St. Lazare.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the railway lines aren’t parallel,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“What does that matter?” she asked, with a haughty air. +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt ashamed of himself. Fanny Price had picked up the glib chatter of +the studios and had no difficulty in impressing Philip with the extent of her +knowledge. She proceeded to explain the pictures to him, superciliously but not +without insight, and showed him what the painters had attempted and what he +must look for. She talked with much gesticulation of the thumb, and Philip, to +whom all she said was new, listened with profound but bewildered interest. Till +now he had worshipped Watts and Burne-Jones. The pretty colour of the first, +the affected drawing of the second, had entirely satisfied his aesthetic +sensibilities. Their vague idealism, the suspicion of a philosophical idea +which underlay the titles they gave their pictures, accorded very well with the +functions of art as from his diligent perusal of Ruskin he understood it; but +here was something quite different: here was no moral appeal; and the +contemplation of these works could help no one to lead a purer and a higher +life. He was puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +At last he said: “You know, I’m simply dead. I don’t think I +can absorb anything more profitably. Let’s go and sit down on one of the +benches.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s better not to take too much art at a time,” Miss Price +answered. +</p> + +<p> +When they got outside he thanked her warmly for the trouble she had taken. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right,” she said, a little ungraciously. +“I do it because I enjoy it. We’ll go to the Louvre tomorrow if you +like, and then I’ll take you to Durand-Ruel’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re really awfully good to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think me such a beast as the most of them do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“They think they’ll drive me away from the studio; but they +won’t; I shall stay there just exactly as long as it suits me. All that +this morning, it was Lucy Otter’s doing, I know it was. She always has +hated me. She thought after that I’d take myself off. I daresay +she’d like me to go. She’s afraid I know too much about her.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price told him a long, involved story, which made out that Mrs. Otter, a +humdrum and respectable little person, had scabrous intrigues. Then she talked +of Ruth Chalice, the girl whom Foinet had praised that morning. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s been with every one of the fellows at the studio. +She’s nothing better than a street-walker. And she’s dirty. She +hasn’t had a bath for a month. I know it for a fact.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip listened uncomfortably. He had heard already that various rumours were +in circulation about Miss Chalice; but it was ridiculous to suppose that Mrs. +Otter, living with her mother, was anything but rigidly virtuous. The woman +walking by his side with her malignant lying positively horrified him. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care what they say. I shall go on just the same. I know +I’ve got it in me. I feel I’m an artist. I’d sooner kill +myself than give it up. Oh, I shan’t be the first they’ve all +laughed at in the schools and then he’s turned out the only genius of the +lot. Art’s the only thing I care for, I’m willing to give my whole +life to it. It’s only a question of sticking to it and pegging +away.” +</p> + +<p> +She found discreditable motives for everyone who would not take her at her own +estimate of herself. She detested Clutton. She told Philip that his friend had +no talent really; it was just flashy and superficial; he couldn’t compose +a figure to save his life. And Lawson: +</p> + +<p> +“Little beast, with his red hair and his freckles. He’s so afraid +of Foinet that he won’t let him see his work. After all, I don’t +funk it, do I? I don’t care what Foinet says to me, I know I’m a +real artist.” +</p> + +<p> +They reached the street in which she lived, and with a sigh of relief Philip +left her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLIV</h2> + +<p> +But notwithstanding when Miss Price on the following Sunday offered to take him +to the Louvre Philip accepted. She showed him Mona Lisa. He looked at it with a +slight feeling of disappointment, but he had read till he knew by heart the +jewelled words with which Walter Pater has added beauty to the most famous +picture in the world; and these now he repeated to Miss Price. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all literature,” she said, a little contemptuously. +“You must get away from that.” +</p> + +<p> +She showed him the Rembrandts, and she said many appropriate things about them. +She stood in front of the Disciples at Emmaus. +</p> + +<p> +“When you feel the beauty of that,” she said, “you’ll +know something about painting.” +</p> + +<p> +She showed him the Odalisque and La Source of Ingres. Fanny Price was a +peremptory guide, she would not let him look at the things he wished, and +attempted to force his admiration for all she admired. She was desperately in +earnest with her study of art, and when Philip, passing in the Long Gallery a +window that looked out on the Tuileries, gay, sunny, and urbane, like a picture +by Raffaelli, exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, how jolly! Do let’s stop here a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +She said, indifferently: “Yes, it’s all right. But we’ve come +here to look at pictures.” +</p> + +<p> +The autumn air, blithe and vivacious, elated Philip; and when towards mid-day +they stood in the great court-yard of the Louvre, he felt inclined to cry like +Flanagan: To hell with art. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, do let’s go to one of those restaurants in the Boul’ +Mich’ and have a snack together, shall we?” he suggested. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price gave him a suspicious look. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got my lunch waiting for me at home,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“That doesn’t matter. You can eat it tomorrow. Do let me stand you +a lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why you want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would give me pleasure,” he replied, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +They crossed the river, and at the corner of the Boulevard St. Michel there was +a restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go in there.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t go there, it looks too expensive.” +</p> + +<p> +She walked on firmly, and Philip was obliged to follow. A few steps brought +them to a smaller restaurant, where a dozen people were already lunching on the +pavement under an awning; on the window was announced in large white letters: +Dejeuner 1.25, vin compris. +</p> + +<p> +“We couldn’t have anything cheaper than this, and it looks quite +all right.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat down at a vacant table and waited for the omelette which was the first +article on the bill of fare. Philip gazed with delight upon the passers-by. His +heart went out to them. He was tired but very happy. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, look at that man in the blouse. Isn’t he ripping!” +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at Miss Price, and to his astonishment saw that she was looking down +at her plate, regardless of the passing spectacle, and two heavy tears were +rolling down her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth’s the matter?” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“If you say anything to me I shall get up and go at once,” she +answered. +</p> + +<p> +He was entirely puzzled, but fortunately at that moment the omelette came. He +divided it in two and they began to eat. Philip did his best to talk of +indifferent things, and it seemed as though Miss Price were making an effort on +her side to be agreeable; but the luncheon was not altogether a success. Philip +was squeamish, and the way in which Miss Price ate took his appetite away. She +ate noisily, greedily, a little like a wild beast in a menagerie, and after she +had finished each course rubbed the plate with pieces of bread till it was +white and shining, as if she did not wish to lose a single drop of gravy. They +had Camembert cheese, and it disgusted Philip to see that she ate rind and all +of the portion that was given her. She could not have eaten more ravenously if +she were starving. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Price was unaccountable, and having parted from her on one day with +friendliness he could never tell whether on the next she would not be sulky and +uncivil; but he learned a good deal from her: though she could not draw well +herself, she knew all that could be taught, and her constant suggestions helped +his progress. Mrs. Otter was useful to him too, and sometimes Miss Chalice +criticised his work; he learned from the glib loquacity of Lawson and from the +example of Clutton. But Fanny Price hated him to take suggestions from anyone +but herself, and when he asked her help after someone else had been talking to +him she would refuse with brutal rudeness. The other fellows, Lawson, Clutton, +Flanagan, chaffed him about her. +</p> + +<p> +“You be careful, my lad,” they said, “she’s in love +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what nonsense,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +The thought that Miss Price could be in love with anyone was preposterous. It +made him shudder when he thought of her uncomeliness, the bedraggled hair and +the dirty hands, the brown dress she always wore, stained and ragged at the +hem: he supposed she was hard up, they were all hard up, but she might at least +be clean; and it was surely possible with a needle and thread to make her skirt +tidy. +</p> + +<p> +Philip began to sort his impressions of the people he was thrown in contact +with. He was not so ingenuous as in those days which now seemed so long ago at +Heidelberg, and, beginning to take a more deliberate interest in humanity, he +was inclined to examine and to criticise. He found it difficult to know Clutton +any better after seeing him every day for three months than on the first day of +their acquaintance. The general impression at the studio was that he was able; +it was supposed that he would do great things, and he shared the general +opinion; but what exactly he was going to do neither he nor anybody else quite +knew. He had worked at several studios before Amitrano’s, at +Julian’s, the Beaux Arts, and MacPherson’s, and was remaining +longer at Amitrano’s than anywhere because he found himself more left +alone. He was not fond of showing his work, and unlike most of the young men +who were studying art neither sought nor gave advice. It was said that in the +little studio in the Rue Campagne Premiere, which served him for work-room and +bed-room, he had wonderful pictures which would make his reputation if only he +could be induced to exhibit them. He could not afford a model but painted still +life, and Lawson constantly talked of a plate of apples which he declared was a +masterpiece. He was fastidious, and, aiming at something he did not quite fully +grasp, was constantly dissatisfied with his work as a whole: perhaps a part +would please him, the forearm or the leg and foot of a figure, a glass or a cup +in a still-life; and he would cut this out and keep it, destroying the rest of +the canvas; so that when people invited themselves to see his work he could +truthfully answer that he had not a single picture to show. In Brittany he had +come across a painter whom nobody else had heard of, a queer fellow who had +been a stockbroker and taken up painting at middle-age, and he was greatly +influenced by his work. He was turning his back on the impressionists and +working out for himself painfully an individual way not only of painting but of +seeing. Philip felt in him something strangely original. +</p> + +<p> +At Gravier’s where they ate, and in the evening at the Versailles or at +the Closerie des Lilas Clutton was inclined to taciturnity. He sat quietly, +with a sardonic expression on his gaunt face, and spoke only when the +opportunity occurred to throw in a witticism. He liked a butt and was most +cheerful when someone was there on whom he could exercise his sarcasm. He +seldom talked of anything but painting, and then only with the one or two +persons whom he thought worth while. Philip wondered whether there was in him +really anything: his reticence, the haggard look of him, the pungent humour, +seemed to suggest personality, but might be no more than an effective mask +which covered nothing. +</p> + +<p> +With Lawson on the other hand Philip soon grew intimate. He had a variety of +interests which made him an agreeable companion. He read more than most of the +students and though his income was small, loved to buy books. He lent them +willingly; and Philip became acquainted with Flaubert and Balzac, with +Verlaine, Heredia, and Villiers de l’Isle Adam. They went to plays +together and sometimes to the gallery of the Opera Comique. There was the Odeon +quite near them, and Philip soon shared his friend’s passion for the +tragedians of Louis XIV and the sonorous Alexandrine. In the Rue Taitbout were +the Concerts Rouge, where for seventy-five centimes they could hear excellent +music and get into the bargain something which it was quite possible to drink: +the seats were uncomfortable, the place was crowded, the air thick with caporal +horrible to breathe, but in their young enthusiasm they were indifferent. +Sometimes they went to the Bal Bullier. On these occasions Flanagan accompanied +them. His excitability and his roisterous enthusiasm made them laugh. He was an +excellent dancer, and before they had been ten minutes in the room he was +prancing round with some little shop-girl whose acquaintance he had just made. +</p> + +<p> +The desire of all of them was to have a mistress. It was part of the +paraphernalia of the art-student in Paris. It gave consideration in the eyes of +one’s fellows. It was something to boast about. But the difficulty was +that they had scarcely enough money to keep themselves, and though they argued +that French-women were so clever it cost no more to keep two then one, they +found it difficult to meet young women who were willing to take that view of +the circumstances. They had to content themselves for the most part with +envying and abusing the ladies who received protection from painters of more +settled respectability than their own. It was extraordinary how difficult these +things were in Paris. Lawson would become acquainted with some young thing and +make an appointment; for twenty-four hours he would be all in a flutter and +describe the charmer at length to everyone he met; but she never by any chance +turned up at the time fixed. He would come to Gravier’s very late, +ill-tempered, and exclaim: +</p> + +<p> +“Confound it, another rabbit! I don’t know why it is they +don’t like me. I suppose it’s because I don’t speak French +well, or my red hair. It’s too sickening to have spent over a year in +Paris without getting hold of anyone.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t go the right way to work,” said Flanagan. +</p> + +<p> +He had a long and enviable list of triumphs to narrate, and though they took +leave not to believe all he said, evidence forced them to acknowledge that he +did not altogether lie. But he sought no permanent arrangement. He only had two +years in Paris: he had persuaded his people to let him come and study art +instead of going to college; but at the end of that period he was to return to +Seattle and go into his father’s business. He had made up his mind to get +as much fun as possible into the time, and demanded variety rather than +duration in his love affairs. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how you get hold of them,” said Lawson +furiously. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no difficulty about that, sonny,” answered Flanagan. +“You just go right in. The difficulty is to get rid of them. That’s +where you want tact.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was too much occupied with his work, the books he was reading, the plays +he saw, the conversation he listened to, to trouble himself with the desire for +female society. He thought there would be plenty of time for that when he could +speak French more glibly. +</p> + +<p> +It was more than a year now since he had seen Miss Wilkinson, and during his +first weeks in Paris he had been too busy to answer a letter she had written to +him just before he left Blackstable. When another came, knowing it would be +full of reproaches and not being just then in the mood for them, he put it +aside, intending to open it later; but he forgot and did not run across it till +a month afterwards, when he was turning out a drawer to find some socks that +had no holes in them. He looked at the unopened letter with dismay. He was +afraid that Miss Wilkinson had suffered a good deal, and it made him feel a +brute; but she had probably got over the suffering by now, at all events the +worst of it. It suggested itself to him that women were often very emphatic in +their expressions. These did not mean so much as when men used them. He had +quite made up his mind that nothing would induce him ever to see her again. He +had not written for so long that it seemed hardly worth while to write now. He +made up his mind not to read the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay she won’t write again,” he said to himself. +“She can’t help seeing the thing’s over. After all, she was +old enough to be my mother; she ought to have known better.” +</p> + +<p> +For an hour or two he felt a little uncomfortable. His attitude was obviously +the right one, but he could not help a feeling of dissatisfaction with the +whole business. Miss Wilkinson, however, did not write again; nor did she, as +he absurdly feared, suddenly appear in Paris to make him ridiculous before his +friends. In a little while he clean forgot her. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile he definitely forsook his old gods. The amazement with which at first +he had looked upon the works of the impressionists, changed to admiration; and +presently he found himself talking as emphatically as the rest on the merits of +Manet, Monet, and Degas. He bought a photograph of a drawing by Ingres of the +Odalisque and a photograph of the Olympia. They were pinned side by side over +his washing-stand so that he could contemplate their beauty while he shaved. He +knew now quite positively that there had been no painting of landscape before +Monet; and he felt a real thrill when he stood in front of Rembrandt’s +Disciples at Emmaus or Velasquez’ Lady with the Flea-bitten Nose. That +was not her real name, but by that she was distinguished at Gravier’s to +emphasise the picture’s beauty notwithstanding the somewhat revolting +peculiarity of the sitter’s appearance. With Ruskin, Burne-Jones, and +Watts, he had put aside his bowler hat and the neat blue tie with white spots +which he had worn on coming to Paris; and now disported himself in a soft, +broad-brimmed hat, a flowing black cravat, and a cape of romantic cut. He +walked along the Boulevard du Montparnasse as though he had known it all his +life, and by virtuous perseverance he had learnt to drink absinthe without +distaste. He was letting his hair grow, and it was only because Nature is +unkind and has no regard for the immortal longings of youth that he did not +attempt a beard. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLV</h2> + +<p> +Philip soon realised that the spirit which informed his friends was +Cronshaw’s. It was from him that Lawson got his paradoxes; and even +Clutton, who strained after individuality, expressed himself in the terms he +had insensibly acquired from the older man. It was his ideas that they bandied +about at table, and on his authority they formed their judgments. They made up +for the respect with which unconsciously they treated him by laughing at his +foibles and lamenting his vices. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, poor old Cronshaw will never do any good,” they said. +“He’s quite hopeless.” +</p> + +<p> +They prided themselves on being alone in appreciating his genius; and though, +with the contempt of youth for the follies of middle-age, they patronised him +among themselves, they did not fail to look upon it as a feather in their caps +if he had chosen a time when only one was there to be particularly wonderful. +Cronshaw never came to Gravier’s. For the last four years he had lived in +squalid conditions with a woman whom only Lawson had once seen, in a tiny +apartment on the sixth floor of one of the most dilapidated houses on the Quai +des Grands Augustins: Lawson described with gusto the filth, the untidiness, +the litter. +</p> + +<p> +“And the stink nearly blew your head off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at dinner, Lawson,” expostulated one of the others. +</p> + +<p> +But he would not deny himself the pleasure of giving picturesque details of the +odours which met his nostril. With a fierce delight in his own realism he +described the woman who had opened the door for him. She was dark, small, and +fat, quite young, with black hair that seemed always on the point of coming +down. She wore a slatternly blouse and no corsets. With her red cheeks, large +sensual mouth, and shining, lewd eyes, she reminded you of the Bohemienne in +the Louvre by Franz Hals. She had a flaunting vulgarity which amused and yet +horrified. A scrubby, unwashed baby was playing on the floor. It was known that +the slut deceived Cronshaw with the most worthless ragamuffins of the Quarter, +and it was a mystery to the ingenuous youths who absorbed his wisdom over a +cafe table that Cronshaw with his keen intellect and his passion for beauty +could ally himself to such a creature. But he seemed to revel in the coarseness +of her language and would often report some phrase which reeked of the gutter. +He referred to her ironically as la fille de mon concierge. Cronshaw was very +poor. He earned a bare subsistence by writing on the exhibitions of pictures +for one or two English papers, and he did a certain amount of translating. He +had been on the staff of an English paper in Paris, but had been dismissed for +drunkenness; he still however did odd jobs for it, describing sales at the +Hotel Drouot or the revues at music-halls. The life of Paris had got into his +bones, and he would not change it, notwithstanding its squalor, drudgery, and +hardship, for any other in the world. He remained there all through the year, +even in summer when everyone he knew was away, and felt himself only at ease +within a mile of the Boulevard St. Michel. But the curious thing was that he +had never learnt to speak French passably, and he kept in his shabby clothes +bought at La Belle Jardiniere an ineradicably English appearance. +</p> + +<p> +He was a man who would have made a success of life a century and a half ago +when conversation was a passport to good company and inebriety no bar. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to have lived in the eighteen hundreds,” he said himself. +“What I want is a patron. I should have published my poems by +subscription and dedicated them to a nobleman. I long to compose rhymed +couplets upon the poodle of a countess. My soul yearns for the love of +chamber-maids and the conversation of bishops.” +</p> + +<p> +He quoted the romantic Rolla, +</p> + +<p> +“Je suis venu trop tard dans un monde trop vieux.” +</p> + +<p> +He liked new faces, and he took a fancy to Philip, who seemed to achieve the +difficult feat of talking just enough to suggest conversation and not too much +to prevent monologue. Philip was captivated. He did not realise that little +that Cronshaw said was new. His personality in conversation had a curious +power. He had a beautiful and a sonorous voice, and a manner of putting things +which was irresistible to youth. All he said seemed to excite thought, and +often on the way home Lawson and Philip would walk to and from one +another’s hotels, discussing some point which a chance word of Cronshaw +had suggested. It was disconcerting to Philip, who had a youthful eagerness for +results, that Cronshaw’s poetry hardly came up to expectation. It had +never been published in a volume, but most of it had appeared in periodicals; +and after a good deal of persuasion Cronshaw brought down a bundle of pages +torn out of The Yellow Book, The Saturday Review, and other journals, on each +of which was a poem. Philip was taken aback to find that most of them reminded +him either of Henley or of Swinburne. It needed the splendour of +Cronshaw’s delivery to make them personal. He expressed his +disappointment to Lawson, who carelessly repeated his words; and next time +Philip went to the Closerie des Lilas the poet turned to him with his sleek +smile: +</p> + +<p> +“I hear you don’t think much of my verses.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was embarrassed. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that,” he answered. “I enjoyed +reading them very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not attempt to spare my feelings,” returned Cronshaw, with a +wave of his fat hand. “I do not attach any exaggerated importance to my +poetical works. Life is there to be lived rather than to be written about. My +aim is to search out the manifold experience that it offers, wringing from each +moment what of emotion it presents. I look upon my writing as a graceful +accomplishment which does not absorb but rather adds pleasure to existence. And +as for posterity—damn posterity.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled, for it leaped to one’s eyes that the artist in life had +produced no more than a wretched daub. Cronshaw looked at him meditatively and +filled his glass. He sent the waiter for a packet of cigarettes. +</p> + +<p> +“You are amused because I talk in this fashion and you know that I am +poor and live in an attic with a vulgar trollop who deceives me with +hair-dressers and garcons de cafe; I translate wretched books for the British +public, and write articles upon contemptible pictures which deserve not even to +be abused. But pray tell me what is the meaning of life?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, that’s rather a difficult question. Won’t you give +the answer yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, because it’s worthless unless you yourself discover it. But +what do you suppose you are in the world for?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had never asked himself, and he thought for a moment before replying. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know: I suppose to do one’s duty, and make the +best possible use of one’s faculties, and avoid hurting other +people.” +</p> + +<p> +“In short, to do unto others as you would they should do unto you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Christianity.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it isn’t,” said Philip indignantly. “It has +nothing to do with Christianity. It’s just abstract morality.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s no such thing as abstract morality.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case, supposing under the influence of liquor you left your +purse behind when you leave here and I picked it up, why do you imagine that I +should return it to you? It’s not the fear of the police.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the dread of hell if you sin and the hope of Heaven if you +are virtuous.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I believe in neither.” +</p> + +<p> +“That may be. Neither did Kant when he devised the Categorical +Imperative. You have thrown aside a creed, but you have preserved the ethic +which was based upon it. To all intents you are a Christian still, and if there +is a God in Heaven you will undoubtedly receive your reward. The Almighty can +hardly be such a fool as the churches make out. If you keep His laws I +don’t think He can care a packet of pins whether you believe in Him or +not.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if I left my purse behind you would certainly return it to +me,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Not from motives of abstract morality, but only from fear of the +police.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a thousand to one that the police would never find +out.” +</p> + +<p> +“My ancestors have lived in a civilised state so long that the fear of +the police has eaten into my bones. The daughter of my concierge would not +hesitate for a moment. You answer that she belongs to the criminal classes; not +at all, she is merely devoid of vulgar prejudice.” +</p> + +<p> +“But then that does away with honour and virtue and goodness and decency +and everything,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever committed a sin?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, I suppose so,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You speak with the lips of a dissenting minister. I have never committed +a sin.” +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw in his shabby great-coat, with the collar turned up, and his hat well +down on his head, with his red fat face and his little gleaming eyes, looked +extraordinarily comic; but Philip was too much in earnest to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you never done anything you regret?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I regret when what I did was inevitable?” asked Cronshaw +in return. +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s fatalism.” +</p> + +<p> +“The illusion which man has that his will is free is so deeply rooted +that I am ready to accept it. I act as though I were a free agent. But when an +action is performed it is clear that all the forces of the universe from all +eternity conspired to cause it, and nothing I could do could have prevented it. +It was inevitable. If it was good I can claim no merit; if it was bad I can +accept no censure.” +</p> + +<p> +“My brain reels,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Have some whiskey,” returned Cronshaw, passing over the bottle. +“There’s nothing like it for clearing the head. You must expect to +be thick-witted if you insist upon drinking beer.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shook his head, and Cronshaw proceeded: +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not a bad fellow, but you won’t drink. Sobriety +disturbs conversation. But when I speak of good and bad…” Philip saw he +was taking up the thread of his discourse, “I speak conventionally. I +attach no meaning to those words. I refuse to make a hierarchy of human actions +and ascribe worthiness to some and ill-repute to others. The terms vice and +virtue have no signification for me. I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. +I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there are one or two other people in the world,” objected +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I speak only for myself. I know them only as they limit my activities. +Round each of them too the world turns, and each one for himself is the centre +of the universe. My right over them extends only as far as my power. What I can +do is the only limit of what I may do. Because we are gregarious we live in +society, and society holds together by means of force, force of arms (that is +the policeman) and force of public opinion (that is Mrs. Grundy). You have +society on one hand and the individual on the other: each is an organism +striving for self-preservation. It is might against might. I stand alone, bound +to accept society and not unwilling, since in return for the taxes I pay it +protects me, a weakling, against the tyranny of another stronger than I am; but +I submit to its laws because I must; I do not acknowledge their justice: I do +not know justice, I only know power. And when I have paid for the policeman who +protects me and, if I live in a country where conscription is in force, served +in the army which guards my house and land from the invader, I am quits with +society: for the rest I counter its might with my wiliness. It makes laws for +its self-preservation, and if I break them it imprisons or kills me: it has the +might to do so and therefore the right. If I break the laws I will accept the +vengeance of the state, but I will not regard it as punishment nor shall I feel +myself convicted of wrong-doing. Society tempts me to its service by honours +and riches and the good opinion of my fellows; but I am indifferent to their +good opinion, I despise honours and I can do very well without riches.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if everyone thought like you things would go to pieces at +once.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have nothing to do with others, I am only concerned with myself. I +take advantage of the fact that the majority of mankind are led by certain +rewards to do things which directly or indirectly tend to my +convenience.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me an awfully selfish way of looking at things,” said +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“But are you under the impression that men ever do anything except for +selfish reasons?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is impossible that they should. You will find as you grow older that +the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to +recognise the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from +others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires +to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for +himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not +disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably. Men seek but one +thing in life—their pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no!” cried Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw chuckled. +</p> + +<p> +“You rear like a frightened colt, because I use a word to which your +Christianity ascribes a deprecatory meaning. You have a hierarchy of values; +pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of +self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You think pleasure is +only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised +a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying. You would not be so +frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of pleasure: it sounds less +shocking, and your mind wanders from the sty of Epicurus to his garden. But I +will speak of pleasure, for I see that men aim at that, and I do not know that +they aim at happiness. It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one +of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when +they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds +pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping +others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is +public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to +a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey +and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure +nor demand your admiration.” +</p> + +<p> +“But have you never known people do things they didn’t want to +instead of things they did?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. You put your question foolishly. What you mean is that people accept +an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure. The objection is as +foolish as your manner of putting it. It is clear that men accept an immediate +pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater +pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in +calculation is no refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you cannot +get over the idea that pleasures are only of the senses; but, child, a man who +dies for his country dies because he likes it as surely as a man eats pickled +cabbage because he likes it. It is a law of creation. If it were possible for +men to prefer pain to pleasure the human race would have long since become +extinct.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if all that is true,” cried Philip, “what is the use of +anything? If you take away duty and goodness and beauty why are we brought into +the world?” +</p> + +<p> +“Here comes the gorgeous East to suggest an answer,” smiled +Cronshaw. +</p> + +<p> +He pointed to two persons who at that moment opened the door of the cafe, and, +with a blast of cold air, entered. They were Levantines, itinerant vendors of +cheap rugs, and each bore on his arm a bundle. It was Sunday evening, and the +cafe was very full. They passed among the tables, and in that atmosphere heavy +and discoloured with tobacco smoke, rank with humanity, they seemed to bring an +air of mystery. They were clad in European, shabby clothes, their thin +great-coats were threadbare, but each wore a tarbouch. Their faces were gray +with cold. One was of middle age, with a black beard, but the other was a youth +of eighteen, with a face deeply scarred by smallpox and with one eye only. They +passed by Cronshaw and Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Allah is great, and Mahomet is his prophet,” said Cronshaw +impressively. +</p> + +<p> +The elder advanced with a cringing smile, like a mongrel used to blows. With a +sidelong glance at the door and a quick surreptitious movement he showed a +pornographic picture. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you Masr-ed-Deen, the merchant of Alexandria, or is it from far +Bagdad that you bring your goods, O, my uncle; and yonder one-eyed youth, do I +see in him one of the three kings of whom Scheherazade told stories to her +lord?” +</p> + +<p> +The pedlar’s smile grew more ingratiating, though he understood no word +of what Cronshaw said, and like a conjurer he produced a sandalwood box. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, show us the priceless web of Eastern looms,” quoth Cronshaw. +“For I would point a moral and adorn a tale.” +</p> + +<p> +The Levantine unfolded a table-cloth, red and yellow, vulgar, hideous, and +grotesque. +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-five francs,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“O, my uncle, this cloth knew not the weavers of Samarkand, and those +colours were never made in the vats of Bokhara.” +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-five francs,” smiled the pedlar obsequiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Ultima Thule was the place of its manufacture, even Birmingham the place +of my birth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen francs,” cringed the bearded man. +</p> + +<p> +“Get thee gone, fellow,” said Cronshaw. “May wild asses +defile the grave of thy maternal grandmother.” +</p> + +<p> +Imperturbably, but smiling no more, the Levantine passed with his wares to +another table. Cronshaw turned to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever been to the Cluny, the museum? There you will see Persian +carpets of the most exquisite hue and of a pattern the beautiful intricacy of +which delights and amazes the eye. In them you will see the mystery and the +sensual beauty of the East, the roses of Hafiz and the wine-cup of Omar; but +presently you will see more. You were asking just now what was the meaning of +life. Go and look at those Persian carpets, and one of these days the answer +will come to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are cryptic,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I am drunk,” answered Cronshaw. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLVI</h2> + +<p> +Philip did not find living in Paris as cheap as he had been led to believe and +by February had spent most of the money with which he started. He was too proud +to appeal to his guardian, nor did he wish Aunt Louisa to know that his +circumstances were straitened, since he was certain she would make an effort to +send him something from her own pocket, and he knew how little she could afford +to. In three months he would attain his majority and come into possession of +his small fortune. He tided over the interval by selling the few trinkets which +he had inherited from his father. +</p> + +<p> +At about this time Lawson suggested that they should take a small studio which +was vacant in one of the streets that led out of the Boulevard Raspail. It was +very cheap. It had a room attached, which they could use as a bed-room; and +since Philip was at the school every morning Lawson could have the undisturbed +use of the studio then; Lawson, after wandering from school to school, had come +to the conclusion that he could work best alone, and proposed to get a model in +three or four days a week. At first Philip hesitated on account of the expense, +but they reckoned it out; and it seemed (they were so anxious to have a studio +of their own that they calculated pragmatically) that the cost would not be +much greater than that of living in a hotel. Though the rent and the cleaning +by the concierge would come to a little more, they would save on the petit +dejeuner, which they could make themselves. A year or two earlier Philip would +have refused to share a room with anyone, since he was so sensitive about his +deformed foot, but his morbid way of looking at it was growing less marked: in +Paris it did not seem to matter so much, and, though he never by any chance +forgot it himself, he ceased to feel that other people were constantly noticing +it. +</p> + +<p> +They moved in, bought a couple of beds, a washing-stand, a few chairs, and felt +for the first time the thrill of possession. They were so excited that the +first night they went to bed in what they could call a home they lay awake +talking till three in the morning; and next day found lighting the fire and +making their own coffee, which they had in pyjamas, such a jolly business that +Philip did not get to Amitrano’s till nearly eleven. He was in excellent +spirits. He nodded to Fanny Price. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you getting on?” he asked cheerily. +</p> + +<p> +“What does that matter to you?” she asked in reply. +</p> + +<p> +Philip could not help laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t jump down my throat. I was only trying to make myself +polite.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want your politeness.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you think it’s worth while quarrelling with me too?” +asked Philip mildly. “There are so few people you’re on speaking +terms with, as it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my business, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite.” +</p> + +<p> +He began to work, vaguely wondering why Fanny Price made herself so +disagreeable. He had come to the conclusion that he thoroughly disliked her. +Everyone did. People were only civil to her at all from fear of the malice of +her tongue; for to their faces and behind their backs she said abominable +things. But Philip was feeling so happy that he did not want even Miss Price to +bear ill-feeling towards him. He used the artifice which had often before +succeeded in banishing her ill-humour. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I wish you’d come and look at my drawing. I’ve got in +an awful mess.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, but I’ve got something better to do with my +time.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip stared at her in surprise, for the one thing she could be counted upon +to do with alacrity was to give advice. She went on quickly in a low voice, +savage with fury. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that Lawson’s gone you think you’ll put up with me. +Thank you very much. Go and find somebody else to help you. I don’t want +anybody else’s leavings.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson had the pedagogic instinct; whenever he found anything out he was eager +to impart it; and because he taught with delight he talked with profit. Philip, +without thinking anything about it, had got into the habit of sitting by his +side; it never occurred to him that Fanny Price was consumed with jealousy, and +watched his acceptance of someone else’s tuition with ever-increasing +anger. +</p> + +<p> +“You were very glad to put up with me when you knew nobody here,” +she said bitterly, “and as soon as you made friends with other people you +threw me aside, like an old glove”—she repeated the stale metaphor +with satisfaction—“like an old glove. All right, I don’t +care, but I’m not going to be made a fool of another time.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a suspicion of truth in what she said, and it made Philip angry +enough to answer what first came into his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Hang it all, I only asked your advice because I saw it pleased +you.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a gasp and threw him a sudden look of anguish. Then two tears rolled +down her cheeks. She looked frowsy and grotesque. Philip, not knowing what on +earth this new attitude implied, went back to his work. He was uneasy and +conscience-stricken; but he would not go to her and say he was sorry if he had +caused her pain, because he was afraid she would take the opportunity to snub +him. For two or three weeks she did not speak to him, and, after Philip had got +over the discomfort of being cut by her, he was somewhat relieved to be free +from so difficult a friendship. He had been a little disconcerted by the air of +proprietorship she assumed over him. She was an extraordinary woman. She came +every day to the studio at eight o’clock, and was ready to start working +when the model was in position; she worked steadily, talking to no one, +struggling hour after hour with difficulties she could not overcome, and +remained till the clock struck twelve. Her work was hopeless. There was not in +it the smallest approach even to the mediocre achievement at which most of the +young persons were able after some months to arrive. She wore every day the +same ugly brown dress, with the mud of the last wet day still caked on the hem +and with the raggedness, which Philip had noticed the first time he saw her, +still unmended. +</p> + +<p> +But one day she came up to him, and with a scarlet face asked whether she might +speak to him afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, as much as you like,” smiled Philip. “I’ll +wait behind at twelve.” +</p> + +<p> +He went to her when the day’s work was over. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you walk a little bit with me?” she said, looking away from +him with embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked for two or three minutes in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you remember what you said to me the other day?” she asked +then on a sudden. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say, don’t let’s quarrel,” said Philip. +“It really isn’t worth while.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a quick, painful inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to quarrel with you. You’re the only friend I +had in Paris. I thought you rather liked me. I felt there was something between +us. I was drawn towards you—you know what I mean, your club-foot.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened and instinctively tried to walk without a limp. He did not like +anyone to mention the deformity. He knew what Fanny Price meant. She was ugly +and uncouth, and because he was deformed there was between them a certain +sympathy. He was very angry with her, but he forced himself not to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“You said you only asked my advice to please me. Don’t you think my +work’s any good?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve only seen your drawing at Amitrano’s. It’s +awfully hard to judge from that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was wondering if you’d come and look at my other work. +I’ve never asked anyone else to look at it. I should like to show it to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awfully kind of you. I’d like to see it very +much.” +</p> + +<p> +“I live quite near here,” she said apologetically. +“It’ll only take you ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +They were walking along the boulevard, and she turned down a side street, then +led him into another, poorer still, with cheap shops on the ground floor, and +at last stopped. They climbed flight after flight of stairs. She unlocked a +door, and they went into a tiny attic with a sloping roof and a small window. +This was closed and the room had a musty smell. Though it was very cold there +was no fire and no sign that there had been one. The bed was unmade. A chair, a +chest of drawers which served also as a wash-stand, and a cheap easel, were all +the furniture. The place would have been squalid enough in any case, but the +litter, the untidiness, made the impression revolting. On the chimney-piece, +scattered over with paints and brushes, were a cup, a dirty plate, and a +tea-pot. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll stand over there I’ll put them on the chair so +that you can see them better.” +</p> + +<p> +She showed him twenty small canvases, about eighteen by twelve. She placed them +on the chair, one after the other, watching his face; he nodded as he looked at +each one. +</p> + +<p> +“You do like them, don’t you?” she said anxiously, after a +bit. +</p> + +<p> +“I just want to look at them all first,” he answered. +“I’ll talk afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +He was collecting himself. He was panic-stricken. He did not know what to say. +It was not only that they were ill-drawn, or that the colour was put on +amateurishly by someone who had no eye for it; but there was no attempt at +getting the values, and the perspective was grotesque. It looked like the work +of a child of five, but a child would have had some naivete and might at least +have made an attempt to put down what he saw; but here was the work of a vulgar +mind chock full of recollections of vulgar pictures. Philip remembered that she +had talked enthusiastically about Monet and the Impressionists, but here were +only the worst traditions of the Royal Academy. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” she said at last, “that’s the lot.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was no more truthful than anybody else, but he had a great difficulty in +telling a thundering, deliberate lie, and he blushed furiously when he +answered: +</p> + +<p> +“I think they’re most awfully good.” +</p> + +<p> +A faint colour came into her unhealthy cheeks, and she smiled a little. +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t say so if you don’t think so, you know. I want +the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I do think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you got any criticism to offer? There must be some you +don’t like as well as others.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked round helplessly. He saw a landscape, the typical picturesque +‘bit’ of the amateur, an old bridge, a creeper-clad cottage, and a +leafy bank. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I don’t pretend to know anything about it,” he +said. “But I wasn’t quite sure about the values of that.” +</p> + +<p> +She flushed darkly and taking up the picture quickly turned its back to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why you should have chosen that one to sneer at. +It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m sure my values are +all right. That’s a thing you can’t teach anyone, you either +understand values or you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think they’re all most awfully good,” repeated Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at them with an air of self-satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think they’re anything to be ashamed of.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, it’s getting late. Won’t you let me give you a little +lunch?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got my lunch waiting for me here.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip saw no sign of it, but supposed perhaps the concierge would bring it up +when he was gone. He was in a hurry to get away. The mustiness of the room made +his head ache. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLVII</h2> + +<p> +In March there was all the excitement of sending in to the Salon. Clutton, +characteristically, had nothing ready, and he was very scornful of the two +heads that Lawson sent; they were obviously the work of a student, +straight-forward portraits of models, but they had a certain force; Clutton, +aiming at perfection, had no patience with efforts which betrayed hesitancy, +and with a shrug of the shoulders told Lawson it was an impertinence to exhibit +stuff which should never have been allowed out of his studio; he was not less +contemptuous when the two heads were accepted. Flanagan tried his luck too, but +his picture was refused. Mrs. Otter sent a blameless Portrait de ma Mere, +accomplished and second-rate; and was hung in a very good place. +</p> + +<p> +Hayward, whom Philip had not seen since he left Heidelberg, arrived in Paris to +spend a few days in time to come to the party which Lawson and Philip were +giving in their studio to celebrate the hanging of Lawson’s pictures. +Philip had been eager to see Hayward again, but when at last they met, he +experienced some disappointment. Hayward had altered a little in appearance: +his fine hair was thinner, and with the rapid wilting of the very fair, he was +becoming wizened and colourless; his blue eyes were paler than they had been, +and there was a muzziness about his features. On the other hand, in mind he did +not seem to have changed at all, and the culture which had impressed Philip at +eighteen aroused somewhat the contempt of Philip at twenty-one. He had altered +a good deal himself, and regarding with scorn all his old opinions of art, +life, and letters, had no patience with anyone who still held them. He was +scarcely conscious of the fact that he wanted to show off before Hayward, but +when he took him round the galleries he poured out to him all the revolutionary +opinions which himself had so recently adopted. He took him to Manet’s +Olympia and said dramatically: +</p> + +<p> +“I would give all the old masters except Velasquez, Rembrandt, and +Vermeer for that one picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was Vermeer?” asked Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear fellow, don’t you know Vermeer? You’re not +civilised. You mustn’t live a moment longer without making his +acquaintance. He’s the one old master who painted like a modern.” +</p> + +<p> +He dragged Hayward out of the Luxembourg and hurried him off to the Louvre. +</p> + +<p> +“But aren’t there any more pictures here?” asked Hayward, +with the tourist’s passion for thoroughness. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the least consequence. You can come and look at them by +yourself with your Baedeker.” +</p> + +<p> +When they arrived at the Louvre Philip led his friend down the Long Gallery. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to see The Gioconda,” said Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear fellow, it’s only literature,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +At last, in a small room, Philip stopped before The Lacemaker of Vermeer van +Delft. +</p> + +<p> +“There, that’s the best picture in the Louvre. It’s exactly +like a Manet.” +</p> + +<p> +With an expressive, eloquent thumb Philip expatiated on the charming work. He +used the jargon of the studios with overpowering effect. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that I see anything so wonderful as all that in +it,” said Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it’s a painter’s picture,” said Philip. +“I can quite believe the layman would see nothing much in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The what?” said Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“The layman.” +</p> + +<p> +Like most people who cultivate an interest in the arts, Hayward was extremely +anxious to be right. He was dogmatic with those who did not venture to assert +themselves, but with the self-assertive he was very modest. He was impressed by +Philip’s assurance, and accepted meekly Philip’s implied suggestion +that the painter’s arrogant claim to be the sole possible judge of +painting has anything but its impertinence to recommend it. +</p> + +<p> +A day or two later Philip and Lawson gave their party. Cronshaw, making an +exception in their favour, agreed to eat their food; and Miss Chalice offered +to come and cook for them. She took no interest in her own sex and declined the +suggestion that other girls should be asked for her sake. Clutton, Flanagan, +Potter, and two others made up the party. Furniture was scarce, so the model +stand was used as a table, and the guests were to sit on portmanteaux if they +liked, and if they didn’t on the floor. The feast consisted of a +pot-au-feu, which Miss Chalice had made, of a leg of mutton roasted round the +corner and brought round hot and savoury (Miss Chalice had cooked the potatoes, +and the studio was redolent of the carrots she had fried; fried carrots were +her specialty); and this was to be followed by poires flambees, pears with +burning brandy, which Cronshaw had volunteered to make. The meal was to finish +with an enormous fromage de Brie, which stood near the window and added +fragrant odours to all the others which filled the studio. Cronshaw sat in the +place of honour on a Gladstone bag, with his legs curled under him like a +Turkish bashaw, beaming good-naturedly on the young people who surrounded him. +From force of habit, though the small studio with the stove lit was very hot, +he kept on his great-coat, with the collar turned up, and his bowler hat: he +looked with satisfaction on the four large fiaschi of Chianti which stood in +front of him in a row, two on each side of a bottle of whiskey; he said it +reminded him of a slim fair Circassian guarded by four corpulent eunuchs. +Hayward in order to put the rest of them at their ease had clothed himself in a +tweed suit and a Trinity Hall tie. He looked grotesquely British. The others +were elaborately polite to him, and during the soup they talked of the weather +and the political situation. There was a pause while they waited for the leg of +mutton, and Miss Chalice lit a cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” she said suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +With an elegant gesture she untied a ribbon so that her tresses fell over her +shoulders. She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“I always feel more comfortable with my hair down.” +</p> + +<p> +With her large brown eyes, thin, ascetic face, her pale skin, and broad +forehead, she might have stepped out of a picture by Burne-Jones. She had long, +beautiful hands, with fingers deeply stained by nicotine. She wore sweeping +draperies, mauve and green. There was about her the romantic air of High +Street, Kensington. She was wantonly aesthetic; but she was an excellent +creature, kind and good natured; and her affectations were but skin-deep. There +was a knock at the door, and they all gave a shout of exultation. Miss Chalice +rose and opened. She took the leg of mutton and held it high above her, as +though it were the head of John the Baptist on a platter; and, the cigarette +still in her mouth, advanced with solemn, hieratic steps. +</p> + +<p> +“Hail, daughter of Herodias,” cried Cronshaw. +</p> + +<p> +The mutton was eaten with gusto, and it did one good to see what a hearty +appetite the pale-faced lady had. Clutton and Potter sat on each side of her, +and everyone knew that neither had found her unduly coy. She grew tired of most +people in six weeks, but she knew exactly how to treat afterwards the gentlemen +who had laid their young hearts at her feet. She bore them no ill-will, though +having loved them she had ceased to do so, and treated them with friendliness +but without familiarity. Now and then she looked at Lawson with melancholy +eyes. The poires flambees were a great success, partly because of the brandy, +and partly because Miss Chalice insisted that they should be eaten with the +cheese. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know whether it’s perfectly delicious, or whether +I’m just going to vomit,” she said, after she had thoroughly tried +the mixture. +</p> + +<p> +Coffee and cognac followed with sufficient speed to prevent any untoward +consequence, and they settled down to smoke in comfort. Ruth Chalice, who could +do nothing that was not deliberately artistic, arranged herself in a graceful +attitude by Cronshaw and just rested her exquisite head on his shoulder. She +looked into the dark abyss of time with brooding eyes, and now and then with a +long meditative glance at Lawson she sighed deeply. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the summer, and restlessness seized these young people. The blue +skies lured them to the sea, and the pleasant breeze sighing through the leaves +of the plane-trees on the boulevard drew them towards the country. Everyone +made plans for leaving Paris; they discussed what was the most suitable size +for the canvases they meant to take; they laid in stores of panels for +sketching; they argued about the merits of various places in Brittany. Flanagan +and Potter went to Concarneau; Mrs. Otter and her mother, with a natural +instinct for the obvious, went to Pont-Aven; Philip and Lawson made up their +minds to go to the forest of Fontainebleau, and Miss Chalice knew of a very +good hotel at Moret where there was lots of stuff to paint; it was near Paris, +and neither Philip nor Lawson was indifferent to the railway fare. Ruth Chalice +would be there, and Lawson had an idea for a portrait of her in the open air. +Just then the Salon was full of portraits of people in gardens, in sunlight, +with blinking eyes and green reflections of sunlit leaves on their faces. They +asked Clutton to go with them, but he preferred spending the summer by himself. +He had just discovered Cezanne, and was eager to go to Provence; he wanted +heavy skies from which the hot blue seemed to drip like beads of sweat, and +broad white dusty roads, and pale roofs out of which the sun had burnt the +colour, and olive trees gray with heat. +</p> + +<p> +The day before they were to start, after the morning class, Philip, putting his +things together, spoke to Fanny Price. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m off tomorrow,” he said cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Off where?” she said quickly. “You’re not going +away?” Her face fell. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going away for the summer. Aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m staying in Paris. I thought you were going to stay too. I +was looking forward….” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped and shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“But won’t it be frightfully hot here? It’s awfully bad for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Much you care if it’s bad for me. Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Moret.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chalice is going there. You’re not going with her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lawson and I are going. And she’s going there too. I don’t +know that we’re actually going together.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a low guttural sound, and her large face grew dark and red. +</p> + +<p> +“How filthy! I thought you were a decent fellow. You were about the only +one here. She’s been with Clutton and Potter and Flanagan, even with old +Foinet—that’s why he takes so much trouble about her—and now +two of you, you and Lawson. It makes me sick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what nonsense! She’s a very decent sort. One treats her just +as if she were a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t speak to me, don’t speak to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what can it matter to you?” asked Philip. “It’s +really no business of yours where I spend my summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was looking forward to it so much,” she gasped, speaking it +seemed almost to herself. “I didn’t think you had the money to go +away, and there wouldn’t have been anyone else here, and we could have +worked together, and we’d have gone to see things.” Then her +thoughts flung back to Ruth Chalice. “The filthy beast,” she cried. +“She isn’t fit to speak to.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at her with a sinking heart. He was not a man to think girls were +in love with him; he was too conscious of his deformity, and he felt awkward +and clumsy with women; but he did not know what else this outburst could mean. +Fanny Price, in the dirty brown dress, with her hair falling over her face, +sloppy, untidy, stood before him; and tears of anger rolled down her cheeks. +She was repellent. Philip glanced at the door, instinctively hoping that +someone would come in and put an end to the scene. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re just the same as all of them. You take all you can get, and +you don’t even say thank you. I’ve taught you everything you know. +No one else would take any trouble with you. Has Foinet ever bothered about +you? And I can tell you this—you can work here for a thousand years and +you’ll never do any good. You haven’t got any talent. You +haven’t got any originality. And it’s not only me—they all +say it. You’ll never be a painter as long as you live.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is no business of yours either, is it?” said Philip, +flushing. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you think it’s only my temper. Ask Clutton, ask Lawson, ask +Chalice. Never, never, never. You haven’t got it in you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shrugged his shoulders and walked out. She shouted after him. +</p> + +<p> +“Never, never, never.” +</p> + +<p> +Moret was in those days an old-fashioned town of one street at the edge of the +forest of Fontainebleau, and the Ecu d’Or was a hotel which still had +about it the decrepit air of the Ancien Regime. It faced the winding river, the +Loing; and Miss Chalice had a room with a little terrace overlooking it, with a +charming view of the old bridge and its fortified gateway. They sat here in the +evenings after dinner, drinking coffee, smoking, and discussing art. There ran +into the river, a little way off, a narrow canal bordered by poplars, and along +the banks of this after their day’s work they often wandered. They spent +all day painting. Like most of their generation they were obsessed by the fear +of the picturesque, and they turned their backs on the obvious beauty of the +town to seek subjects which were devoid of a prettiness they despised. Sisley +and Monet had painted the canal with its poplars, and they felt a desire to try +their hands at what was so typical of France; but they were frightened of its +formal beauty, and set themselves deliberately to avoid it. Miss Chalice, who +had a clever dexterity which impressed Lawson notwithstanding his contempt for +feminine art, started a picture in which she tried to circumvent the +commonplace by leaving out the tops of the trees; and Lawson had the brilliant +idea of putting in his foreground a large blue advertisement of chocolat Menier +in order to emphasise his abhorrence of the chocolate box. +</p> + +<p> +Philip began now to paint in oils. He experienced a thrill of delight when +first he used that grateful medium. He went out with Lawson in the morning with +his little box and sat by him painting a panel; it gave him so much +satisfaction that he did not realise he was doing no more than copy; he was so +much under his friend’s influence that he saw only with his eyes. Lawson +painted very low in tone, and they both saw the emerald of the grass like dark +velvet, while the brilliance of the sky turned in their hands to a brooding +ultramarine. Through July they had one fine day after another; it was very hot; +and the heat, searing Philip’s heart, filled him with languor; he could +not work; his mind was eager with a thousand thoughts. Often he spent the +mornings by the side of the canal in the shade of the poplars, reading a few +lines and then dreaming for half an hour. Sometimes he hired a rickety bicycle +and rode along the dusty road that led to the forest, and then lay down in a +clearing. His head was full of romantic fancies. The ladies of Watteau, gay and +insouciant, seemed to wander with their cavaliers among the great trees, +whispering to one another careless, charming things, and yet somehow oppressed +by a nameless fear. +</p> + +<p> +They were alone in the hotel but for a fat Frenchwoman of middle age, a +Rabelaisian figure with a broad, obscene laugh. She spent the day by the river +patiently fishing for fish she never caught, and Philip sometimes went down and +talked to her. He found out that she had belonged to a profession whose most +notorious member for our generation was Mrs. Warren, and having made a +competence she now lived the quiet life of the bourgeoise. She told Philip lewd +stories. +</p> + +<p> +“You must go to Seville,” she said—she spoke a little broken +English. “The most beautiful women in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +She leered and nodded her head. Her triple chin, her large belly, shook with +inward laughter. +</p> + +<p> +It grew so hot that it was almost impossible to sleep at night. The heat seemed +to linger under the trees as though it were a material thing. They did not wish +to leave the starlit night, and the three of them would sit on the terrace of +Ruth Chalice’s room, silent, hour after hour, too tired to talk any more, +but in voluptuous enjoyment of the stillness. They listened to the murmur of +the river. The church clock struck one and two and sometimes three before they +could drag themselves to bed. Suddenly Philip became aware that Ruth Chalice +and Lawson were lovers. He divined it in the way the girl looked at the young +painter, and in his air of possession; and as Philip sat with them he felt a +kind of effluence surrounding them, as though the air were heavy with something +strange. The revelation was a shock. He had looked upon Miss Chalice as a very +good fellow and he liked to talk to her, but it had never seemed to him +possible to enter into a closer relationship. One Sunday they had all gone with +a tea-basket into the forest, and when they came to a glade which was suitably +sylvan, Miss Chalice, because it was idyllic, insisted on taking off her shoes +and stockings. It would have been very charming only her feet were rather large +and she had on both a large corn on the third toe. Philip felt it made her +proceeding a little ridiculous. But now he looked upon her quite differently; +there was something softly feminine in her large eyes and her olive skin; he +felt himself a fool not to have seen that she was attractive. He thought he +detected in her a touch of contempt for him, because he had not had the sense +to see that she was there, in his way, and in Lawson a suspicion of +superiority. He was envious of Lawson, and he was jealous, not of the +individual concerned, but of his love. He wished that he was standing in his +shoes and feeling with his heart. He was troubled, and the fear seized him that +love would pass him by. He wanted a passion to seize him, he wanted to be swept +off his feet and borne powerless in a mighty rush he cared not whither. Miss +Chalice and Lawson seemed to him now somehow different, and the constant +companionship with them made him restless. He was dissatisfied with himself. +Life was not giving him what he wanted, and he had an uneasy feeling that he +was losing his time. +</p> + +<p> +The stout Frenchwoman soon guessed what the relations were between the couple, +and talked of the matter to Philip with the utmost frankness. +</p> + +<p> +“And you,” she said, with the tolerant smile of one who had +fattened on the lust of her fellows, “have you got a petite amie?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Philip, blushing. +</p> + +<p> +“And why not? C’est de votre age.” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders. He had a volume of Verlaine in his hands, and he +wandered off. He tried to read, but his passion was too strong. He thought of +the stray amours to which he had been introduced by Flanagan, the sly visits to +houses in a cul-de-sac, with the drawing-room in Utrecht velvet, and the +mercenary graces of painted women. He shuddered. He threw himself on the grass, +stretching his limbs like a young animal freshly awaked from sleep; and the +rippling water, the poplars gently tremulous in the faint breeze, the blue sky, +were almost more than he could bear. He was in love with love. In his fancy he +felt the kiss of warm lips on his, and around his neck the touch of soft hands. +He imagined himself in the arms of Ruth Chalice, he thought of her dark eyes +and the wonderful texture of her skin; he was mad to have let such a wonderful +adventure slip through his fingers. And if Lawson had done it why should not +he? But this was only when he did not see her, when he lay awake at night or +dreamed idly by the side of the canal; when he saw her he felt suddenly quite +different; he had no desire to take her in his arms, and he could not imagine +himself kissing her. It was very curious. Away from her he thought her +beautiful, remembering only her magnificent eyes and the creamy pallor of her +face; but when he was with her he saw only that she was flat-chested and that +her teeth were slightly decayed; he could not forget the corns on her toes. He +could not understand himself. Would he always love only in absence and be +prevented from enjoying anything when he had the chance by that deformity of +vision which seemed to exaggerate the revolting? +</p> + +<p> +He was not sorry when a change in the weather, announcing the definite end of +the long summer, drove them all back to Paris. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLVIII</h2> + +<p> +When Philip returned to Amitrano’s he found that Fanny Price was no +longer working there. She had given up the key of her locker. He asked Mrs. +Otter whether she knew what had become of her; and Mrs. Otter, with a shrug of +the shoulders, answered that she had probably gone back to England. Philip was +relieved. He was profoundly bored by her ill-temper. Moreover she insisted on +advising him about his work, looked upon it as a slight when he did not follow +her precepts, and would not understand that he felt himself no longer the +duffer he had been at first. Soon he forgot all about her. He was working in +oils now and he was full of enthusiasm. He hoped to have something done of +sufficient importance to send to the following year’s Salon. Lawson was +painting a portrait of Miss Chalice. She was very paintable, and all the young +men who had fallen victims to her charm had made portraits of her. A natural +indolence, joined with a passion for picturesque attitude, made her an +excellent sitter; and she had enough technical knowledge to offer useful +criticisms. Since her passion for art was chiefly a passion to live the life of +artists, she was quite content to neglect her own work. She liked the warmth of +the studio, and the opportunity to smoke innumerable cigarettes; and she spoke +in a low, pleasant voice of the love of art and the art of love. She made no +clear distinction between the two. +</p> + +<p> +Lawson was painting with infinite labour, working till he could hardly stand +for days and then scraping out all he had done. He would have exhausted the +patience of anyone but Ruth Chalice. At last he got into a hopeless muddle. +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing is to take a new canvas and start fresh,” he said. +“I know exactly what I want now, and it won’t take me long.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was present at the time, and Miss Chalice said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you paint me too? You’ll be able to learn a lot by +watching Mr. Lawson.” +</p> + +<p> +It was one of Miss Chalice’s delicacies that she always addressed her +lovers by their surnames. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like it awfully if Lawson wouldn’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care a damn,” said Lawson. +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time that Philip set about a portrait, and he began with +trepidation but also with pride. He sat by Lawson and painted as he saw him +paint. He profited by the example and by the advice which both Lawson and Miss +Chalice freely gave him. At last Lawson finished and invited Clutton in to +criticise. Clutton had only just come back to Paris. From Provence he had +drifted down to Spain, eager to see Velasquez at Madrid, and thence he had gone +to Toledo. He stayed there three months, and he was returned with a name new to +the young men: he had wonderful things to say of a painter called El Greco, who +it appeared could only be studied in Toledo. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I know about him,” said Lawson, “he’s the old +master whose distinction it is that he painted as badly as the moderns.” +</p> + +<p> +Clutton, more taciturn than ever, did not answer, but he looked at Lawson with +a sardonic air. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to show us the stuff you’ve brought back from +Spain?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t paint in Spain, I was too busy.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought things out. I believe I’m through with the +Impressionists; I’ve got an idea they’ll seem very thin and +superficial in a few years. I want to make a clean sweep of everything +I’ve learnt and start fresh. When I came back I destroyed everything +I’d painted. I’ve got nothing in my studio now but an easel, my +paints, and some clean canvases.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know yet. I’ve only got an inkling of what I +want.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke slowly, in a curious manner, as though he were straining to hear +something which was only just audible. There seemed to be a mysterious force in +him which he himself did not understand, but which was struggling obscurely to +find an outlet. His strength impressed you. Lawson dreaded the criticism he +asked for and had discounted the blame he thought he might get by affecting a +contempt for any opinion of Clutton’s; but Philip knew there was nothing +which would give him more pleasure than Clutton’s praise. Clutton looked +at the portrait for some time in silence, then glanced at Philip’s +picture, which was standing on an easel. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I had a shot at a portrait too.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sedulous ape,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +He turned away again to Lawson’s canvas. Philip reddened but did not +speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what d’you think of it?” asked Lawson at length. +</p> + +<p> +“The modelling’s jolly good,” said Clutton. “And I +think it’s very well drawn.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you think the values are all right?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson smiled with delight. He shook himself in his clothes like a wet dog. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m jolly glad you like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t. I don’t think it’s of the smallest +importance.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson’s face fell, and he stared at Clutton with astonishment: he had no +notion what he meant, Clutton had no gift of expression in words, and he spoke +as though it were an effort. What he had to say was confused, halting, and +verbose; but Philip knew the words which served as the text of his rambling +discourse. Clutton, who never read, had heard them first from Cronshaw; and +though they had made small impression, they had remained in his memory; and +lately, emerging on a sudden, had acquired the character of a revelation: a +good painter had two chief objects to paint, namely, man and the intention of +his soul. The Impressionists had been occupied with other problems, they had +painted man admirably, but they had troubled themselves as little as the +English portrait painters of the eighteenth century with the intention of his +soul. +</p> + +<p> +“But when you try to get that you become literary,” said Lawson, +interrupting. “Let me paint the man like Manet, and the intention of his +soul can go to the devil.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be all very well if you could beat Manet at his own game, but +you can’t get anywhere near him. You can’t feed yourself on the day +before yesterday, it’s ground which has been swept dry. You must go back. +It’s when I saw the Grecos that I felt one could get something more out +of portraits than we knew before.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just going back to Ruskin,” cried Lawson. +</p> + +<p> +“No—you see, he went for morality: I don’t care a damn for +morality: teaching doesn’t come in, ethics and all that, but passion and +emotion. The greatest portrait painters have painted both, man and the +intention of his soul; Rembrandt and El Greco; it’s only the +second-raters who’ve only painted man. A lily of the valley would be +lovely even if it didn’t smell, but it’s more lovely because it has +perfume. That picture”—he pointed to Lawson’s +portrait—“well, the drawing’s all right and so’s the +modelling all right, but just conventional; it ought to be drawn and modelled +so that you know the girl’s a lousy slut. Correctness is all very well: +El Greco made his people eight feet high because he wanted to express something +he couldn’t get any other way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn El Greco,” said Lawson, “what’s the good of +jawing about a man when we haven’t a chance of seeing any of his +work?” +</p> + +<p> +Clutton shrugged his shoulders, smoked a cigarette in silence, and went away. +Philip and Lawson looked at one another. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s something in what he says,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Lawson stared ill-temperedly at his picture. +</p> + +<p> +“How the devil is one to get the intention of the soul except by painting +exactly what one sees?” +</p> + +<p> +About this time Philip made a new friend. On Monday morning models assembled at +the school in order that one might be chosen for the week, and one day a young +man was taken who was plainly not a model by profession. Philip’s +attention was attracted by the manner in which he held himself: when he got on +to the stand he stood firmly on both feet, square, with clenched hands, and +with his head defiantly thrown forward; the attitude emphasised his fine +figure; there was no fat on him, and his muscles stood out as though they were +of iron. His head, close-cropped, was well-shaped, and he wore a short beard; +he had large, dark eyes and heavy eyebrows. He held the pose hour after hour +without appearance of fatigue. There was in his mien a mixture of shame and of +determination. His air of passionate energy excited Philip’s romantic +imagination, and when, the sitting ended, he saw him in his clothes, it seemed +to him that he wore them as though he were a king in rags. He was +uncommunicative, but in a day or two Mrs. Otter told Philip that the model was +a Spaniard and that he had never sat before. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he was starving,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you noticed his clothes? They’re quite neat and decent, +aren’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that Potter, one of the Americans who worked at Amitrano’s, +was going to Italy for a couple of months, and offered his studio to Philip. +Philip was pleased. He was growing a little impatient of Lawson’s +peremptory advice and wanted to be by himself. At the end of the week he went +up to the model and on the pretence that his drawing was not finished asked +whether he would come and sit to him one day. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a model,” the Spaniard answered. “I have other +things to do next week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come and have luncheon with me now, and we’ll talk about +it,” said Philip, and as the other hesitated, he added with a smile: +“It won’t hurt you to lunch with me.” +</p> + +<p> +With a shrug of the shoulders the model consented, and they went off to a +cremerie. The Spaniard spoke broken French, fluent but difficult to follow, and +Philip managed to get on well enough with him. He found out that he was a +writer. He had come to Paris to write novels and kept himself meanwhile by all +the expedients possible to a penniless man; he gave lessons, he did any +translations he could get hold of, chiefly business documents, and at last had +been driven to make money by his fine figure. Sitting was well paid, and what +he had earned during the last week was enough to keep him for two more; he told +Philip, amazed, that he could live easily on two francs a day; but it filled +him with shame that he was obliged to show his body for money, and he looked +upon sitting as a degradation which only hunger could excuse. Philip explained +that he did not want him to sit for the figure, but only for the head; he +wished to do a portrait of him which he might send to the next Salon. +</p> + +<p> +“But why should you want to paint me?” asked the Spaniard. +</p> + +<p> +Philip answered that the head interested him, he thought he could do a good +portrait. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t afford the time. I grudge every minute that I have to rob +from my writing.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it would only be in the afternoon. I work at the school in the +morning. After all, it’s better to sit to me than to do translations of +legal documents.” +</p> + +<p> +There were legends in the Latin quarter of a time when students of different +countries lived together intimately, but this was long since passed, and now +the various nations were almost as much separated as in an Oriental city. At +Julian’s and at the Beaux Arts a French student was looked upon with +disfavour by his fellow-countrymen when he consorted with foreigners, and it +was difficult for an Englishman to know more than quite superficially any +native inhabitants of the city in which he dwelt. Indeed, many of the students +after living in Paris for five years knew no more French than served them in +shops and lived as English a life as though they were working in South +Kensington. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, with his passion for the romantic, welcomed the opportunity to get in +touch with a Spaniard; he used all his persuasiveness to overcome the +man’s reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the Spaniard at +last. “I’ll sit to you, but not for money, for my own +pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip expostulated, but the other was firm, and at length they arranged that +he should come on the following Monday at one o’clock. He gave Philip a +card on which was printed his name: Miguel Ajuria. +</p> + +<p> +Miguel sat regularly, and though he refused to accept payment he borrowed fifty +francs from Philip every now and then: it was a little more expensive than if +Philip had paid for the sittings in the usual way; but gave the Spaniard a +satisfactory feeling that he was not earning his living in a degrading manner. +His nationality made Philip regard him as a representative of romance, and he +asked him about Seville and Granada, Velasquez and Calderon. But Miguel had no +patience with the grandeur of his country. For him, as for so many of his +compatriots, France was the only country for a man of intelligence and Paris +the centre of the world. +</p> + +<p> +“Spain is dead,” he cried. “It has no writers, it has no art, +it has nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Little by little, with the exuberant rhetoric of his race, he revealed his +ambitions. He was writing a novel which he hoped would make his name. He was +under the influence of Zola, and he had set his scene in Paris. He told Philip +the story at length. To Philip it seemed crude and stupid; the naive +obscenity—c’est la vie, mon cher, c’est la vie, he +cried—the naive obscenity served only to emphasise the conventionality of +the anecdote. He had written for two years, amid incredible hardships, denying +himself all the pleasures of life which had attracted him to Paris, fighting +with starvation for art’s sake, determined that nothing should hinder his +great achievement. The effort was heroic. +</p> + +<p> +“But why don’t you write about Spain?” cried Philip. +“It would be so much more interesting. You know the life.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Paris is the only place worth writing about. Paris is life.” +</p> + +<p> +One day he brought part of the manuscript, and in his bad French, translating +excitedly as he went along so that Philip could scarcely understand, he read +passages. It was lamentable. Philip, puzzled, looked at the picture he was +painting: the mind behind that broad brow was trivial; and the flashing, +passionate eyes saw nothing in life but the obvious. Philip was not satisfied +with his portrait, and at the end of a sitting he nearly always scraped out +what he had done. It was all very well to aim at the intention of the soul: who +could tell what that was when people seemed a mass of contradictions? He liked +Miguel, and it distressed him to realise that his magnificent struggle was +futile: he had everything to make a good writer but talent. Philip looked at +his own work. How could you tell whether there was anything in it or whether +you were wasting your time? It was clear that the will to achieve could not +help you and confidence in yourself meant nothing. Philip thought of Fanny +Price; she had a vehement belief in her talent; her strength of will was +extraordinary. +</p> + +<p> +“If I thought I wasn’t going to be really good, I’d rather +give up painting,” said Philip. “I don’t see any use in being +a second-rate painter.” +</p> + +<p> +Then one morning when he was going out, the concierge called out to him that +there was a letter. Nobody wrote to him but his Aunt Louisa and sometimes +Hayward, and this was a handwriting he did not know. The letter was as follows: +</p> + +<p> +Please come at once when you get this. I couldn’t put up with it any +more. Please come yourself. I can’t bear the thought that anyone else +should touch me. I want you to have everything. +</p> + +<p> +F. Price +</p> + +<p> +I have not had anything to eat for three days. +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt on a sudden sick with fear. He hurried to the house in which she +lived. He was astonished that she was in Paris at all. He had not seen her for +months and imagined she had long since returned to England. When he arrived he +asked the concierge whether she was in. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve not seen her go out for two days.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip ran upstairs and knocked at the door. There was no reply. He called her +name. The door was locked, and on bending down he found the key was in the +lock. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my God, I hope she hasn’t done something awful,” he +cried aloud. +</p> + +<p> +He ran down and told the porter that she was certainly in the room. He had had +a letter from her and feared a terrible accident. He suggested breaking open +the door. The porter, who had been sullen and disinclined to listen, became +alarmed; he could not take the responsibility of breaking into the room; they +must go for the commissaire de police. They walked together to the bureau, and +then they fetched a locksmith. Philip found that Miss Price had not paid the +last quarter’s rent: on New Year’s Day she had not given the +concierge the present which old-established custom led him to regard as a +right. The four of them went upstairs, and they knocked again at the door. +There was no reply. The locksmith set to work, and at last they entered the +room. Philip gave a cry and instinctively covered his eyes with his hands. The +wretched woman was hanging with a rope round her neck, which she had tied to a +hook in the ceiling fixed by some previous tenant to hold up the curtains of +the bed. She had moved her own little bed out of the way and had stood on a +chair, which had been kicked away. It was lying on its side on the floor. They +cut her down. The body was quite cold. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XLIX</h2> + +<p> +The story which Philip made out in one way and another was terrible. One of the +grievances of the women-students was that Fanny Price would never share their +gay meals in restaurants, and the reason was obvious: she had been oppressed by +dire poverty. He remembered the luncheon they had eaten together when first he +came to Paris and the ghoulish appetite which had disgusted him: he realised +now that she ate in that manner because she was ravenous. The concierge told +him what her food had consisted of. A bottle of milk was left for her every day +and she brought in her own loaf of bread; she ate half the loaf and drank half +the milk at mid-day when she came back from the school, and consumed the rest +in the evening. It was the same day after day. Philip thought with anguish of +what she must have endured. She had never given anyone to understand that she +was poorer than the rest, but it was clear that her money had been coming to an +end, and at last she could not afford to come any more to the studio. The +little room was almost bare of furniture, and there were no other clothes than +the shabby brown dress she had always worn. Philip searched among her things +for the address of some friend with whom he could communicate. He found a piece +of paper on which his own name was written a score of times. It gave him a +peculiar shock. He supposed it was true that she had loved him; he thought of +the emaciated body, in the brown dress, hanging from the nail in the ceiling; +and he shuddered. But if she had cared for him why did she not let him help +her? He would so gladly have done all he could. He felt remorseful because he +had refused to see that she looked upon him with any particular feeling, and +now these words in her letter were infinitely pathetic: I can’t bear the +thought that anyone else should touch me. She had died of starvation. +</p> + +<p> +Philip found at length a letter signed: your loving brother, Albert. It was two +or three weeks old, dated from some road in Surbiton, and refused a loan of +five pounds. The writer had his wife and family to think of, he didn’t +feel justified in lending money, and his advice was that Fanny should come back +to London and try to get a situation. Philip telegraphed to Albert Price, and +in a little while an answer came: +</p> + +<p> +“Deeply distressed. Very awkward to leave my business. Is presence +essential. Price.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip wired a succinct affirmative, and next morning a stranger presented +himself at the studio. +</p> + +<p> +“My name’s Price,” he said, when Philip opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +He was a commonish man in black with a band round his bowler hat; he had +something of Fanny’s clumsy look; he wore a stubbly moustache, and had a +cockney accent. Philip asked him to come in. He cast sidelong glances round the +studio while Philip gave him details of the accident and told him what he had +done. +</p> + +<p> +“I needn’t see her, need I?” asked Albert Price. “My +nerves aren’t very strong, and it takes very little to upset me.” +</p> + +<p> +He began to talk freely. He was a rubber-merchant, and he had a wife and three +children. Fanny was a governess, and he couldn’t make out why she +hadn’t stuck to that instead of coming to Paris. +</p> + +<p> +“Me and Mrs. Price told her Paris was no place for a girl. And +there’s no money in art—never ’as been.” +</p> + +<p> +It was plain enough that he had not been on friendly terms with his sister, and +he resented her suicide as a last injury that she had done him. He did not like +the idea that she had been forced to it by poverty; that seemed to reflect on +the family. The idea struck him that possibly there was a more respectable +reason for her act. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose she ’adn’t any trouble with a man, ’ad she? +You know what I mean, Paris and all that. She might ’ave done it so as +not to disgrace herself.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt himself reddening and cursed his weakness. Price’s keen +little eyes seemed to suspect him of an intrigue. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe your sister to have been perfectly virtuous,” he +answered acidly. “She killed herself because she was starving.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s very ’ard on her family, Mr. Carey. She only +’ad to write to me. I wouldn’t have let my sister want.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had found the brother’s address only by reading the letter in +which he refused a loan; but he shrugged his shoulders: there was no use in +recrimination. He hated the little man and wanted to have done with him as soon +as possible. Albert Price also wished to get through the necessary business +quickly so that he could get back to London. They went to the tiny room in +which poor Fanny had lived. Albert Price looked at the pictures and the +furniture. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t pretend to know much about art,” he said. “I +suppose these pictures would fetch something, would they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“The furniture’s not worth ten shillings.” +</p> + +<p> +Albert Price knew no French and Philip had to do everything. It seemed that it +was an interminable process to get the poor body safely hidden away under +ground: papers had to be obtained in one place and signed in another; officials +had to be seen. For three days Philip was occupied from morning till night. At +last he and Albert Price followed the hearse to the cemetery at Montparnasse. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to do the thing decent,” said Albert Price, “but +there’s no use wasting money.” +</p> + +<p> +The short ceremony was infinitely dreadful in the cold gray morning. Half a +dozen people who had worked with Fanny Price at the studio came to the funeral, +Mrs. Otter because she was massiere and thought it her duty, Ruth Chalice +because she had a kind heart, Lawson, Clutton, and Flanagan. They had all +disliked her during her life. Philip, looking across the cemetery crowded on +all sides with monuments, some poor and simple, others vulgar, pretentious, and +ugly, shuddered. It was horribly sordid. When they came out Albert Price asked +Philip to lunch with him. Philip loathed him now and he was tired; he had not +been sleeping well, for he dreamed constantly of Fanny Price in the torn brown +dress, hanging from the nail in the ceiling; but he could not think of an +excuse. +</p> + +<p> +“You take me somewhere where we can get a regular slap-up lunch. All this +is the very worst thing for my nerves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lavenue’s is about the best place round here,” answered +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Albert Price settled himself on a velvet seat with a sigh of relief. He ordered +a substantial luncheon and a bottle of wine. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He threw out a few artful questions, and Philip discovered that he was eager to +hear about the painter’s life in Paris. He represented it to himself as +deplorable, but he was anxious for details of the orgies which his fancy +suggested to him. With sly winks and discreet sniggering he conveyed that he +knew very well that there was a great deal more than Philip confessed. He was a +man of the world, and he knew a thing or two. He asked Philip whether he had +ever been to any of those places in Montmartre which are celebrated from Temple +Bar to the Royal Exchange. He would like to say he had been to the Moulin +Rouge. The luncheon was very good and the wine excellent. Albert Price expanded +as the processes of digestion went satisfactorily forwards. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s ’ave a little brandy,” he said when the coffee +was brought, “and blow the expense.” +</p> + +<p> +He rubbed his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, I’ve got ’alf a mind to stay over tonight and go +back tomorrow. What d’you say to spending the evening together?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean you want me to take you round Montmartre tonight, I’ll +see you damned,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it wouldn’t be quite the thing.” +</p> + +<p> +The answer was made so seriously that Philip was tickled. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides it would be rotten for your nerves,” he said gravely. +</p> + +<p> +Albert Price concluded that he had better go back to London by the four +o’clock train, and presently he took leave of Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, good-bye, old man,” he said. “I tell you what, +I’ll try and come over to Paris again one of these days and I’ll +look you up. And then we won’t ’alf go on the razzle.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was too restless to work that afternoon, so he jumped on a bus and +crossed the river to see whether there were any pictures on view at +Durand-Ruel’s. After that he strolled along the boulevard. It was cold +and wind-swept. People hurried by wrapped up in their coats, shrunk together in +an effort to keep out of the cold, and their faces were pinched and careworn. +It was icy underground in the cemetery at Montparnasse among all those white +tombstones. Philip felt lonely in the world and strangely homesick. He wanted +company. At that hour Cronshaw would be working, and Clutton never welcomed +visitors; Lawson was painting another portrait of Ruth Chalice and would not +care to be disturbed. He made up his mind to go and see Flanagan. He found him +painting, but delighted to throw up his work and talk. The studio was +comfortable, for the American had more money than most of them, and warm; +Flanagan set about making tea. Philip looked at the two heads that he was +sending to the Salon. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awful cheek my sending anything,” said Flanagan, +“but I don’t care, I’m going to send. D’you think +they’re rotten?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so rotten as I should have expected,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +They showed in fact an astounding cleverness. The difficulties had been avoided +with skill, and there was a dash about the way in which the paint was put on +which was surprising and even attractive. Flanagan, without knowledge or +technique, painted with the loose brush of a man who has spent a lifetime in +the practice of the art. +</p> + +<p> +“If one were forbidden to look at any picture for more than thirty +seconds you’d be a great master, Flanagan,” smiled Philip. +</p> + +<p> +These young people were not in the habit of spoiling one another with excessive +flattery. +</p> + +<p> +“We haven’t got time in America to spend more than thirty seconds +in looking at any picture,” laughed the other. +</p> + +<p> +Flanagan, though he was the most scatter-brained person in the world, had a +tenderness of heart which was unexpected and charming. Whenever anyone was ill +he installed himself as sick-nurse. His gaiety was better than any medicine. +Like many of his countrymen he had not the English dread of sentimentality +which keeps so tight a hold on emotion; and, finding nothing absurd in the show +of feeling, could offer an exuberant sympathy which was often grateful to his +friends in distress. He saw that Philip was depressed by what he had gone +through and with unaffected kindliness set himself boisterously to cheer him +up. He exaggerated the Americanisms which he knew always made the Englishmen +laugh and poured out a breathless stream of conversation, whimsical, +high-spirited, and jolly. In due course they went out to dinner and afterwards +to the Gaite Montparnasse, which was Flanagan’s favourite place of +amusement. By the end of the evening he was in his most extravagant humour. He +had drunk a good deal, but any inebriety from which he suffered was due much +more to his own vivacity than to alcohol. He proposed that they should go to +the Bal Bullier, and Philip, feeling too tired to go to bed, willingly enough +consented. They sat down at a table on the platform at the side, raised a +little from the level of the floor so that they could watch the dancing, and +drank a bock. Presently Flanagan saw a friend and with a wild shout leaped over +the barrier on to the space where they were dancing. Philip watched the people. +Bullier was not the resort of fashion. It was Thursday night and the place was +crowded. There were a number of students of the various faculties, but most of +the men were clerks or assistants in shops; they wore their everyday clothes, +ready-made tweeds or queer tail-coats, and their hats, for they had brought +them in with them, and when they danced there was no place to put them but +their heads. Some of the women looked like servant-girls, and some were painted +hussies, but for the most part they were shop-girls. They were poorly-dressed +in cheap imitation of the fashions on the other side of the river. The hussies +were got up to resemble the music-hall artiste or the dancer who enjoyed +notoriety at the moment; their eyes were heavy with black and their cheeks +impudently scarlet. The hall was lit by great white lights, low down, which +emphasised the shadows on the faces; all the lines seemed to harden under it, +and the colours were most crude. It was a sordid scene. Philip leaned over the +rail, staring down, and he ceased to hear the music. They danced furiously. +They danced round the room, slowly, talking very little, with all their +attention given to the dance. The room was hot, and their faces shone with +sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had thrown off the guard which people wear +on their expression, the homage to convention, and he saw them now as they +really were. In that moment of abandon they were strangely animal: some were +foxy and some were wolf-like; and others had the long, foolish face of sheep. +Their skins were sallow from the unhealthy life they led and the poor food they +ate. Their features were blunted by mean interests, and their little eyes were +shifty and cunning. There was nothing of nobility in their bearing, and you +felt that for all of them life was a long succession of petty concerns and +sordid thoughts. The air was heavy with the musty smell of humanity. But they +danced furiously as though impelled by some strange power within them, and it +seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by a rage for enjoyment. They +were seeking desperately to escape from a world of horror. The desire for +pleasure which Cronshaw said was the only motive of human action urged them +blindly on, and the very vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all +pleasure. They were hurried on by a great wind, helplessly, they knew not why +and they knew not whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they danced as +though everlasting darkness were beneath their feet. Their silence was vaguely +alarming. It was as if life terrified them and robbed them of power of speech +so that the shriek which was in their hearts died at their throats. Their eyes +were haggard and grim; and notwithstanding the beastly lust that disfigured +them, and the meanness of their faces, and the cruelty, notwithstanding the +stupidness which was worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes made all +that crowd terrible and pathetic. Philip loathed them, and yet his heart ached +with the infinite pity which filled him. +</p> + +<p> +He took his coat from the cloak-room and went out into the bitter coldness of +the night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>L</h2> + +<p> +Philip could not get the unhappy event out of his head. What troubled him most +was the uselessness of Fanny’s effort. No one could have worked harder +than she, nor with more sincerity; she believed in herself with all her heart; +but it was plain that self-confidence meant very little, all his friends had +it, Miguel Ajuria among the rest; and Philip was shocked by the contrast +between the Spaniard’s heroic endeavour and the triviality of the thing +he attempted. The unhappiness of Philip’s life at school had called up in +him the power of self-analysis; and this vice, as subtle as drug-taking, had +taken possession of him so that he had now a peculiar keenness in the +dissection of his feelings. He could not help seeing that art affected him +differently from others. A fine picture gave Lawson an immediate thrill. His +appreciation was instinctive. Even Flanagan felt certain things which Philip +was obliged to think out. His own appreciation was intellectual. He could not +help thinking that if he had in him the artistic temperament (he hated the +phrase, but could discover no other) he would feel beauty in the emotional, +unreasoning way in which they did. He began to wonder whether he had anything +more than a superficial cleverness of the hand which enabled him to copy +objects with accuracy. That was nothing. He had learned to despise technical +dexterity. The important thing was to feel in terms of paint. Lawson painted in +a certain way because it was his nature to, and through the imitativeness of a +student sensitive to every influence, there pierced individuality. Philip +looked at his own portrait of Ruth Chalice, and now that three months had +passed he realised that it was no more than a servile copy of Lawson. He felt +himself barren. He painted with the brain, and he could not help knowing that +the only painting worth anything was done with the heart. +</p> + +<p> +He had very little money, barely sixteen hundred pounds, and it would be +necessary for him to practise the severest economy. He could not count on +earning anything for ten years. The history of painting was full of artists who +had earned nothing at all. He must resign himself to penury; and it was worth +while if he produced work which was immortal; but he had a terrible fear that +he would never be more than second-rate. Was it worth while for that to give up +one’s youth, and the gaiety of life, and the manifold chances of being? +He knew the existence of foreign painters in Paris enough to see that the lives +they led were narrowly provincial. He knew some who had dragged along for +twenty years in the pursuit of a fame which always escaped them till they sunk +into sordidness and alcoholism. Fanny’s suicide had aroused memories, and +Philip heard ghastly stories of the way in which one person or another had +escaped from despair. He remembered the scornful advice which the master had +given poor Fanny: it would have been well for her if she had taken it and given +up an attempt which was hopeless. +</p> + +<p> +Philip finished his portrait of Miguel Ajuria and made up his mind to send it +to the Salon. Flanagan was sending two pictures, and he thought he could paint +as well as Flanagan. He had worked so hard on the portrait that he could not +help feeling it must have merit. It was true that when he looked at it he felt +that there was something wrong, though he could not tell what; but when he was +away from it his spirits went up and he was not dissatisfied. He sent it to the +Salon and it was refused. He did not mind much, since he had done all he could +to persuade himself that there was little chance that it would be taken, till +Flanagan a few days later rushed in to tell Lawson and Philip that one of his +pictures was accepted. With a blank face Philip offered his congratulations, +and Flanagan was so busy congratulating himself that he did not catch the note +of irony which Philip could not prevent from coming into his voice. Lawson, +quicker-witted, observed it and looked at Philip curiously. His own picture was +all right, he knew that a day or two before, and he was vaguely resentful of +Philip’s attitude. But he was surprised at the sudden question which +Philip put him as soon as the American was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“If you were in my place would you chuck the whole thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if it’s worth while being a second-rate painter. You see, +in other things, if you’re a doctor or if you’re in business, it +doesn’t matter so much if you’re mediocre. You make a living and +you get along. But what is the good of turning out second-rate pictures?” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson was fond of Philip and, as soon as he thought he was seriously +distressed by the refusal of his picture, he set himself to console him. It was +notorious that the Salon had refused pictures which were afterwards famous; it +was the first time Philip had sent, and he must expect a rebuff; +Flanagan’s success was explicable, his picture was showy and superficial: +it was just the sort of thing a languid jury would see merit in. Philip grew +impatient; it was humiliating that Lawson should think him capable of being +seriously disturbed by so trivial a calamity and would not realise that his +dejection was due to a deep-seated distrust of his powers. +</p> + +<p> +Of late Clutton had withdrawn himself somewhat from the group who took their +meals at Gravier’s, and lived very much by himself. Flanagan said he was +in love with a girl, but Clutton’s austere countenance did not suggest +passion; and Philip thought it more probable that he separated himself from his +friends so that he might grow clear with the new ideas which were in him. But +that evening, when the others had left the restaurant to go to a play and +Philip was sitting alone, Clutton came in and ordered dinner. They began to +talk, and finding Clutton more loquacious and less sardonic than usual, Philip +determined to take advantage of his good humour. +</p> + +<p> +“I say I wish you’d come and look at my picture,” he said. +“I’d like to know what you think of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t do that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” asked Philip, reddening. +</p> + +<p> +The request was one which they all made of one another, and no one ever thought +of refusing. Clutton shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise. Besides, +what’s the good of criticism? What does it matter if your picture is good +or bad?” +</p> + +<p> +“It matters to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. The only reason that one paints is that one can’t help it. +It’s a function like any of the other functions of the body, only +comparatively few people have got it. One paints for oneself: otherwise one +would commit suicide. Just think of it, you spend God knows how long trying to +get something on to canvas, putting the sweat of your soul into it, and what is +the result? Ten to one it will be refused at the Salon; if it’s accepted, +people glance at it for ten seconds as they pass; if you’re lucky some +ignorant fool will buy it and put it on his walls and look at it as little as +he looks at his dining-room table. Criticism has nothing to do with the artist. +It judges objectively, but the objective doesn’t concern the +artist.” +</p> + +<p> +Clutton put his hands over his eyes so that he might concentrate his mind on +what he wanted to say. +</p> + +<p> +“The artist gets a peculiar sensation from something he sees, and is +impelled to express it and, he doesn’t know why, he can only express his +feeling by lines and colours. It’s like a musician; he’ll read a +line or two, and a certain combination of notes presents itself to him: he +doesn’t know why such and such words call forth in him such and such +notes; they just do. And I’ll tell you another reason why criticism is +meaningless: a great painter forces the world to see nature as he sees it; but +in the next generation another painter sees the world in another way, and then +the public judges him not by himself but by his predecessor. So the Barbizon +people taught our fathers to look at trees in a certain manner, and when Monet +came along and painted differently, people said: But trees aren’t like +that. It never struck them that trees are exactly how a painter chooses to see +them. We paint from within outwards—if we force our vision on the world +it calls us great painters; if we don’t it ignores us; but we are the +same. We don’t attach any meaning to greatness or to smallness. What +happens to our work afterwards is unimportant; we have got all we could out of +it while we were doing it.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause while Clutton with voracious appetite devoured the food that +was set before him. Philip, smoking a cheap cigar, observed him closely. The +ruggedness of the head, which looked as though it were carved from a stone +refractory to the sculptor’s chisel, the rough mane of dark hair, the +great nose, and the massive bones of the jaw, suggested a man of strength; and +yet Philip wondered whether perhaps the mask concealed a strange weakness. +Clutton’s refusal to show his work might be sheer vanity: he could not +bear the thought of anyone’s criticism, and he would not expose himself +to the chance of a refusal from the Salon; he wanted to be received as a master +and would not risk comparisons with other work which might force him to +diminish his own opinion of himself. During the eighteen months Philip had +known him Clutton had grown more harsh and bitter; though he would not come out +into the open and compete with his fellows, he was indignant with the facile +success of those who did. He had no patience with Lawson, and the pair were no +longer on the intimate terms upon which they had been when Philip first knew +them. +</p> + +<p> +“Lawson’s all right,” he said contemptuously, +“he’ll go back to England, become a fashionable portrait painter, +earn ten thousand a year and be an A. R. A. before he’s forty. Portraits +done by hand for the nobility and gentry!” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, too, looked into the future, and he saw Clutton in twenty years, +bitter, lonely, savage, and unknown; still in Paris, for the life there had got +into his bones, ruling a small cenacle with a savage tongue, at war with +himself and the world, producing little in his increasing passion for a +perfection he could not reach; and perhaps sinking at last into drunkenness. Of +late Philip had been captivated by an idea that since one had only one life it +was important to make a success of it, but he did not count success by the +acquiring of money or the achieving of fame; he did not quite know yet what he +meant by it, perhaps variety of experience and the making the most of his +abilities. It was plain anyway that the life which Clutton seemed destined to +was failure. Its only justification would be the painting of imperishable +masterpieces. He recollected Cronshaw’s whimsical metaphor of the Persian +carpet; he had thought of it often; but Cronshaw with his faun-like humour had +refused to make his meaning clear: he repeated that it had none unless one +discovered it for oneself. It was this desire to make a success of life which +was at the bottom of Philip’s uncertainty about continuing his artistic +career. But Clutton began to talk again. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you remember my telling you about that chap I met in Brittany? I +saw him the other day here. He’s just off to Tahiti. He was broke to the +world. He was a brasseur d’affaires, a stockbroker I suppose you call it +in English; and he had a wife and family, and he was earning a large income. He +chucked it all to become a painter. He just went off and settled down in +Brittany and began to paint. He hadn’t got any money and did the next +best thing to starving.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what about his wife and family?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he dropped them. He left them to starve on their own account.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds a pretty low-down thing to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear fellow, if you want to be a gentleman you must give up being +an artist. They’ve got nothing to do with one another. You hear of men +painting pot-boilers to keep an aged mother—well, it shows they’re +excellent sons, but it’s no excuse for bad work. They’re only +tradesmen. An artist would let his mother go to the workhouse. There’s a +writer I know over here who told me that his wife died in childbirth. He was in +love with her and he was mad with grief, but as he sat at the bedside watching +her die he found himself making mental notes of how she looked and what she +said and the things he was feeling. Gentlemanly, wasn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“But is your friend a good painter?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not yet, he paints just like Pissarro. He hasn’t found +himself, but he’s got a sense of colour and a sense of decoration. But +that isn’t the question. It’s the feeling, and that he’s got. +He’s behaved like a perfect cad to his wife and children, he’s +always behaving like a perfect cad; the way he treats the people who’ve +helped him—and sometimes he’s been saved from starvation merely by +the kindness of his friends—is simply beastly. He just happens to be a +great artist.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip pondered over the man who was willing to sacrifice everything, comfort, +home, money, love, honour, duty, for the sake of getting on to canvas with +paint the emotion which the world gave him. It was magnificent, and yet his +courage failed him. +</p> + +<p> +Thinking of Cronshaw recalled to him the fact that he had not seen him for a +week, and so, when Clutton left him, he wandered along to the cafe in which he +was certain to find the writer. During the first few months of his stay in +Paris Philip had accepted as gospel all that Cronshaw said, but Philip had a +practical outlook and he grew impatient with the theories which resulted in no +action. Cronshaw’s slim bundle of poetry did not seem a substantial +result for a life which was sordid. Philip could not wrench out of his nature +the instincts of the middle-class from which he came; and the penury, the hack +work which Cronshaw did to keep body and soul together, the monotony of +existence between the slovenly attic and the cafe table, jarred with his +respectability. Cronshaw was astute enough to know that the young man +disapproved of him, and he attacked his philistinism with an irony which was +sometimes playful but often very keen. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a tradesman,” he told Philip, “you want to +invest life in consols so that it shall bring you in a safe three per cent. +I’m a spendthrift, I run through my capital. I shall spend my last penny +with my last heartbeat.” +</p> + +<p> +The metaphor irritated Philip, because it assumed for the speaker a romantic +attitude and cast a slur upon the position which Philip instinctively felt had +more to say for it than he could think of at the moment. +</p> + +<p> +But this evening Philip, undecided, wanted to talk about himself. Fortunately +it was late already and Cronshaw’s pile of saucers on the table, each +indicating a drink, suggested that he was prepared to take an independent view +of things in general. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you’d give me some advice,” said Philip +suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t take it, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shrugged his shoulders impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe I shall ever do much good as a painter. I +don’t see any use in being second-rate. I’m thinking of chucking +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip hesitated for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I like the life.” +</p> + +<p> +A change came over Cronshaw’s placid, round face. The corners of the +mouth were suddenly depressed, the eyes sunk dully in their orbits; he seemed +to become strangely bowed and old. +</p> + +<p> +“This?” he cried, looking round the cafe in which they sat. His +voice really trembled a little. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can get out of it, do while there’s time.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip stared at him with astonishment, but the sight of emotion always made +him feel shy, and he dropped his eyes. He knew that he was looking upon the +tragedy of failure. There was silence. Philip thought that Cronshaw was looking +upon his own life; and perhaps he considered his youth with its bright hopes +and the disappointments which wore out the radiancy; the wretched monotony of +pleasure, and the black future. Philip’s eyes rested on the little pile +of saucers, and he knew that Cronshaw’s were on them too. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LI</h2> + +<p> +Two months passed. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Philip, brooding over these matters, that in the true painters, +writers, musicians, there was a power which drove them to such complete +absorption in their work as to make it inevitable for them to subordinate life +to art. Succumbing to an influence they never realised, they were merely dupes +of the instinct that possessed them, and life slipped through their fingers +unlived. But he had a feeling that life was to be lived rather than portrayed, +and he wanted to search out the various experiences of it and wring from each +moment all the emotion that it offered. He made up his mind at length to take a +certain step and abide by the result, and, having made up his mind, he +determined to take the step at once. Luckily enough the next morning was one of +Foinet’s days, and he resolved to ask him point-blank whether it was +worth his while to go on with the study of art. He had never forgotten the +master’s brutal advice to Fanny Price. It had been sound. Philip could +never get Fanny entirely out of his head. The studio seemed strange without +her, and now and then the gesture of one of the women working there or the tone +of a voice would give him a sudden start, reminding him of her: her presence +was more noticable now she was dead than it had ever been during her life; and +he often dreamed of her at night, waking with a cry of terror. It was horrible +to think of all the suffering she must have endured. +</p> + +<p> +Philip knew that on the days Foinet came to the studio he lunched at a little +restaurant in the Rue d’Odessa, and he hurried his own meal so that he +could go and wait outside till the painter came out. Philip walked up and down +the crowded street and at last saw Monsieur Foinet walking, with bent head, +towards him; Philip was very nervous, but he forced himself to go up to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon, monsieur, I should like to speak to you for one moment.” +</p> + +<p> +Foinet gave him a rapid glance, recognised him, but did not smile a greeting. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been working here nearly two years now under you. I wanted to +ask you to tell me frankly if you think it worth while for me to +continue.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s voice was trembling a little. Foinet walked on without looking +up. Philip, watching his face, saw no trace of expression upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very poor. If I have no talent I would sooner do something +else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know if you have talent?” +</p> + +<p> +“All my friends know they have talent, but I am aware some of them are +mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +Foinet’s bitter mouth outlined the shadow of a smile, and he asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you live near here?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip told him where his studio was. Foinet turned round. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go there? You shall show me your work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now?” cried Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had nothing to say. He walked silently by the master’s side. He +felt horribly sick. It had never struck him that Foinet would wish to see his +things there and then; he meant, so that he might have time to prepare himself, +to ask him if he would mind coming at some future date or whether he might +bring them to Foinet’s studio. He was trembling with anxiety. In his +heart he hoped that Foinet would look at his picture, and that rare smile would +come into his face, and he would shake Philip’s hand and say: “Pas +mal. Go on, my lad. You have talent, real talent.” Philip’s heart +swelled at the thought. It was such a relief, such a joy! Now he could go on +with courage; and what did hardship matter, privation, and disappointment, if +he arrived at last? He had worked very hard, it would be too cruel if all that +industry were futile. And then with a start he remembered that he had heard +Fanny Price say just that. They arrived at the house, and Philip was seized +with fear. If he had dared he would have asked Foinet to go away. He did not +want to know the truth. They went in and the concierge handed him a letter as +they passed. He glanced at the envelope and recognised his uncle’s +handwriting. Foinet followed him up the stairs. Philip could think of nothing +to say; Foinet was mute, and the silence got on his nerves. The professor sat +down; and Philip without a word placed before him the picture which the Salon +had rejected; Foinet nodded but did not speak; then Philip showed him the two +portraits he had made of Ruth Chalice, two or three landscapes which he had +painted at Moret, and a number of sketches. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all,” he said presently, with a nervous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur Foinet rolled himself a cigarette and lit it. +</p> + +<p> +“You have very little private means?” he asked at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Very little,” answered Philip, with a sudden feeling of cold at +his heart. “Not enough to live on.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one’s +means of livelihood. I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise +money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which +you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income +half the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about +is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn. You will +hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never +felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It +exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul +like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve +one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and +independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, +who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip quietly put away the various things which he had shown. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid that sounds as if you didn’t think I had much +chance.” +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur Foinet slightly shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“You have a certain manual dexterity. With hard work and perseverance +there is no reason why you should not become a careful, not incompetent +painter. You would find hundreds who painted worse than you, hundreds who +painted as well. I see no talent in anything you have shown me. I see industry +and intelligence. You will never be anything but mediocre.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip obliged himself to answer quite steadily. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very grateful to you for having taken so much trouble. I +can’t thank you enough.” +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur Foinet got up and made as if to go, but he changed his mind and, +stopping, put his hand on Philip’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“But if you were to ask me my advice, I should say: take your courage in +both hands and try your luck at something else. It sounds very hard, but let me +tell you this: I would give all I have in the world if someone had given me +that advice when I was your age and I had taken it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked up at him with surprise. The master forced his lips into a smile, +but his eyes remained grave and sad. +</p> + +<p> +“It is cruel to discover one’s mediocrity only when it is too late. +It does not improve the temper.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a little laugh as he said the last words and quickly walked out of the +room. +</p> + +<p> +Philip mechanically took up the letter from his uncle. The sight of his +handwriting made him anxious, for it was his aunt who always wrote to him. She +had been ill for the last three months, and he had offered to go over to +England and see her; but she, fearing it would interfere with his work, had +refused. She did not want him to put himself to inconvenience; she said she +would wait till August and then she hoped he would come and stay at the +vicarage for two or three weeks. If by any chance she grew worse she would let +him know, since she did not wish to die without seeing him again. If his uncle +wrote to him it must be because she was too ill to hold a pen. Philip opened +the letter. It ran as follows: +</p> + +<p> +My dear Philip, +</p> + +<p> +I regret to inform you that your dear Aunt departed this life early this +morning. She died very suddenly, but quite peacefully. The change for the worse +was so rapid that we had no time to send for you. She was fully prepared for +the end and entered into rest with the complete assurance of a blessed +resurrection and with resignation to the divine will of our blessed Lord Jesus +Christ. Your Aunt would have liked you to be present at the funeral so I trust +you will come as soon as you can. There is naturally a great deal of work +thrown upon my shoulders and I am very much upset. I trust that you will be +able to do everything for me. Your affectionate uncle,<br/> +William Carey. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LII</h2> + +<p> +Next day Philip arrived at Blackstable. Since the death of his mother he had +never lost anyone closely connected with him; his aunt’s death shocked +him and filled him also with a curious fear; he felt for the first time his own +mortality. He could not realise what life would be for his uncle without the +constant companionship of the woman who had loved and tended him for forty +years. He expected to find him broken down with hopeless grief. He dreaded the +first meeting; he knew that he could say nothing which would be of use. He +rehearsed to himself a number of apposite speeches. +</p> + +<p> +He entered the vicarage by the side-door and went into the dining-room. Uncle +William was reading the paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Your train was late,” he said, looking up. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was prepared to give way to his emotion, but the matter-of-fact +reception startled him. His uncle, subdued but calm, handed him the paper. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a very nice little paragraph about her in The Blackstable +Times,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip read it mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to come up and see her?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip nodded and together they walked upstairs. Aunt Louisa was lying in the +middle of the large bed, with flowers all round her. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to say a short prayer?” said the Vicar. +</p> + +<p> +He sank on his knees, and because it was expected of him Philip followed his +example. He looked at the little shrivelled face. He was only conscious of one +emotion: what a wasted life! In a minute Mr. Carey gave a cough, and stood up. +He pointed to a wreath at the foot of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s from the Squire,” he said. He spoke in a low voice as +though he were in church, but one felt that, as a clergyman, he found himself +quite at home. “I expect tea is ready.” +</p> + +<p> +They went down again to the dining-room. The drawn blinds gave a lugubrious +aspect. The Vicar sat at the end of the table at which his wife had always sat +and poured out the tea with ceremony. Philip could not help feeling that +neither of them should have been able to eat anything, but when he saw that his +uncle’s appetite was unimpaired he fell to with his usual heartiness. +They did not speak for a while. Philip set himself to eat an excellent cake +with the air of grief which he felt was decent. +</p> + +<p> +“Things have changed a great deal since I was a curate,” said the +Vicar presently. “In my young days the mourners used always to be given a +pair of black gloves and a piece of black silk for their hats. Poor Louisa used +to make the silk into dresses. She always said that twelve funerals gave her a +new dress.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he told Philip who had sent wreaths; there were twenty-four of them +already; when Mrs. Rawlingson, wife of the Vicar at Ferne, had died she had had +thirty-two; but probably a good many more would come the next day; the funeral +would start at eleven o’clock from the vicarage, and they should beat +Mrs. Rawlingson easily. Louisa never liked Mrs. Rawlingson. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall take the funeral myself. I promised Louisa I would never let +anyone else bury her.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at his uncle with disapproval when he took a second piece of +cake. Under the circumstances he could not help thinking it greedy. +</p> + +<p> +“Mary Ann certainly makes capital cakes. I’m afraid no one else +will make such good ones.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not going?” cried Philip, with astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +Mary Ann had been at the vicarage ever since he could remember. She never +forgot his birthday, but made a point always of sending him a trifle, absurd +but touching. He had a real affection for her. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered Mr. Carey. “I didn’t think it would do +to have a single woman in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, good heavens, she must be over forty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I think she is. But she’s been rather troublesome lately, +she’s been inclined to take too much on herself, and I thought this was a +very good opportunity to give her notice.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s certainly one which isn’t likely to recur,” said +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He took out a cigarette, but his uncle prevented him from lighting it. +</p> + +<p> +“Not till after the funeral, Philip,” he said gently. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“It wouldn’t be quite respectful to smoke in the house so long as +your poor Aunt Louisa is upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +Josiah Graves, churchwarden and manager of the bank, came back to dinner at the +vicarage after the funeral. The blinds had been drawn up, and Philip, against +his will, felt a curious sensation of relief. The body in the house had made +him uncomfortable: in life the poor woman had been all that was kind and +gentle; and yet, when she lay upstairs in her bed-room, cold and stark, it +seemed as though she cast upon the survivors a baleful influence. The thought +horrified Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He found himself alone for a minute or two in the dining-room with the +churchwarden. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll be able to stay with your uncle a while,” he +said. “I don’t think he ought to be left alone just yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t made any plans,” answered Philip. “If he +wants me I shall be very pleased to stay.” +</p> + +<p> +By way of cheering the bereaved husband the churchwarden during dinner talked +of a recent fire at Blackstable which had partly destroyed the Wesleyan chapel. +</p> + +<p> +“I hear they weren’t insured,” he said, with a little smile. +</p> + +<p> +“That won’t make any difference,” said the Vicar. +“They’ll get as much money as they want to rebuild. Chapel people +are always ready to give money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see that Holden sent a wreath.” +</p> + +<p> +Holden was the dissenting minister, and, though for Christ’s sake who +died for both of them, Mr. Carey nodded to him in the street, he did not speak +to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it was very pushing,” he remarked. “There were +forty-one wreaths. Yours was beautiful. Philip and I admired it very +much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention it,” said the banker. +</p> + +<p> +He had noticed with satisfaction that it was larger than anyone’s else. +It had looked very well. They began to discuss the people who attended the +funeral. Shops had been closed for it, and the churchwarden took out of his +pocket the notice which had been printed: “Owing to the funeral of Mrs. +Carey this establishment will not be opened till one o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was my idea,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it was very nice of them to close,” said the Vicar. +“Poor Louisa would have appreciated that.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip ate his dinner. Mary Ann had treated the day as Sunday, and they had +roast chicken and a gooseberry tart. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you haven’t thought about a tombstone yet?” said +the churchwarden. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have. I thought of a plain stone cross. Louisa was always against +ostentation.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think one can do much better than a cross. If you’re +thinking of a text, what do you say to: With Christ, which is far +better?” +</p> + +<p> +The Vicar pursed his lips. It was just like Bismarck to try and settle +everything himself. He did not like that text; it seemed to cast an aspersion +on himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I should put that. I much prefer: The Lord has given +and the Lord has taken away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do you? That always seems to me a little indifferent.” +</p> + +<p> +The Vicar answered with some acidity, and Mr. Graves replied in a tone which +the widower thought too authoritative for the occasion. Things were going +rather far if he could not choose his own text for his own wife’s +tombstone. There was a pause, and then the conversation drifted to parish +matters. Philip went into the garden to smoke his pipe. He sat on a bench, and +suddenly began to laugh hysterically. +</p> + +<p> +A few days later his uncle expressed the hope that he would spend the next few +weeks at Blackstable. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that will suit me very well,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it’ll do if you go back to Paris in September.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not reply. He had thought much of what Foinet said to him, but he +was still so undecided that he did not wish to speak of the future. There would +be something fine in giving up art because he was convinced that he could not +excel; but unfortunately it would seem so only to himself: to others it would +be an admission of defeat, and he did not want to confess that he was beaten. +He was an obstinate fellow, and the suspicion that his talent did not lie in +one direction made him inclined to force circumstances and aim notwithstanding +precisely in that direction. He could not bear that his friends should laugh at +him. This might have prevented him from ever taking the definite step of +abandoning the study of painting, but the different environment made him on a +sudden see things differently. Like many another he discovered that crossing +the Channel makes things which had seemed important singularly futile. The life +which had been so charming that he could not bear to leave it now seemed inept; +he was seized with a distaste for the cafes, the restaurants with their +ill-cooked food, the shabby way in which they all lived. He did not care any +more what his friends thought about him: Cronshaw with his rhetoric, Mrs. Otter +with her respectability, Ruth Chalice with her affectations, Lawson and Clutton +with their quarrels; he felt a revulsion from them all. He wrote to Lawson and +asked him to send over all his belongings. A week later they arrived. When he +unpacked his canvases he found himself able to examine his work without +emotion. He noticed the fact with interest. His uncle was anxious to see his +pictures. Though he had so greatly disapproved of Philip’s desire to go +to Paris, he accepted the situation now with equanimity. He was interested in +the life of students and constantly put Philip questions about it. He was in +fact a little proud of him because he was a painter, and when people were +present made attempts to draw him out. He looked eagerly at the studies of +models which Philip showed him. Philip set before him his portrait of Miguel +Ajuria. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you paint him?” asked Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wanted a model, and his head interested me.” +</p> + +<p> +“As you haven’t got anything to do here I wonder you don’t +paint me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would bore you to sit.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I should like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must see about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was amused at his uncle’s vanity. It was clear that he was dying +to have his portrait painted. To get something for nothing was a chance not to +be missed. For two or three days he threw out little hints. He reproached +Philip for laziness, asked him when he was going to start work, and finally +began telling everyone he met that Philip was going to paint him. At last there +came a rainy day, and after breakfast Mr. Carey said to Philip: +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what d’you say to starting on my portrait this +morning?” Philip put down the book he was reading and leaned back in his +chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve given up painting,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked his uncle in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think there’s much object in being a second-rate +painter, and I came to the conclusion that I should never be anything +else.” +</p> + +<p> +“You surprise me. Before you went to Paris you were quite certain that +you were a genius.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was mistaken,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought now you’d taken up a profession you’d +have the pride to stick to it. It seems to me that what you lack is +perseverance.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was a little annoyed that his uncle did not even see how truly heroic +his determination was. +</p> + +<p> +“‘A rolling stone gathers no moss,’” proceeded the +clergyman. Philip hated that proverb above all, and it seemed to him perfectly +meaningless. His uncle had repeated it often during the arguments which had +preceded his departure from business. Apparently it recalled that occasion to +his guardian. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re no longer a boy, you know; you must begin to think of +settling down. First you insist on becoming a chartered accountant, and then +you get tired of that and you want to become a painter. And now if you please +you change your mind again. It points to…” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated for a moment to consider what defects of character exactly it +indicated, and Philip finished the sentence. +</p> + +<p> +“Irresolution, incompetence, want of foresight, and lack of +determination.” +</p> + +<p> +The Vicar looked up at his nephew quickly to see whether he was laughing at +him. Philip’s face was serious, but there was a twinkle in his eyes which +irritated him. Philip should really be getting more serious. He felt it right +to give him a rap over the knuckles. +</p> + +<p> +“Your money matters have nothing to do with me now. You’re your own +master; but I think you should remember that your money won’t last for +ever, and the unlucky deformity you have doesn’t exactly make it easier +for you to earn your living.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip knew by now that whenever anyone was angry with him his first thought +was to say something about his club-foot. His estimate of the human race was +determined by the fact that scarcely anyone failed to resist the temptation. +But he had trained himself not to show any sign that the reminder wounded him. +He had even acquired control over the blushing which in his boyhood had been +one of his torments. +</p> + +<p> +“As you justly remark,” he answered, “my money matters have +nothing to do with you and I am my own master.” +</p> + +<p> +“At all events you will do me the justice to acknowledge that I was +justified in my opposition when you made up your mind to become an +art-student.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know so much about that. I daresay one profits more by the +mistakes one makes off one’s own bat than by doing the right thing on +somebody’s else advice. I’ve had my fling, and I don’t mind +settling down now.” +</p> + +<p> +“What at?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was not prepared for the question, since in fact he had not made up his +mind. He had thought of a dozen callings. +</p> + +<p> +“The most suitable thing you could do is to enter your father’s +profession and become a doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oddly enough that is precisely what I intend.” +</p> + +<p> +He had thought of doctoring among other things, chiefly because it was an +occupation which seemed to give a good deal of personal freedom, and his +experience of life in an office had made him determine never to have anything +more to do with one; his answer to the Vicar slipped out almost unawares, +because it was in the nature of a repartee. It amused him to make up his mind +in that accidental way, and he resolved then and there to enter his +father’s old hospital in the autumn. +</p> + +<p> +“Then your two years in Paris may be regarded as so much wasted +time?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that. I had a very jolly two years, and I +learned one or two useful things.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reflected for an instant, and his answer was not devoid of a gentle +desire to annoy. +</p> + +<p> +“I learned to look at hands, which I’d never looked at before. And +instead of just looking at houses and trees I learned to look at houses and +trees against the sky. And I learned also that shadows are not black but +coloured.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you think you’re very clever. I think your flippancy is +quite inane.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LIII</h2> + +<p> +Taking the paper with him Mr. Carey retired to his study. Philip changed his +chair for that in which his uncle had been sitting (it was the only comfortable +one in the room), and looked out of the window at the pouring rain. Even in +that sad weather there was something restful about the green fields that +stretched to the horizon. There was an intimate charm in the landscape which he +did not remember ever to have noticed before. Two years in France had opened +his eyes to the beauty of his own countryside. +</p> + +<p> +He thought with a smile of his uncle’s remark. It was lucky that the turn +of his mind tended to flippancy. He had begun to realise what a great loss he +had sustained in the death of his father and mother. That was one of the +differences in his life which prevented him from seeing things in the same way +as other people. The love of parents for their children is the only emotion +which is quite disinterested. Among strangers he had grown up as best he could, +but he had seldom been used with patience or forbearance. He prided himself on +his self-control. It had been whipped into him by the mockery of his fellows. +Then they called him cynical and callous. He had acquired calmness of demeanour +and under most circumstances an unruffled exterior, so that now he could not +show his feelings. People told him he was unemotional; but he knew that he was +at the mercy of his emotions: an accidental kindness touched him so much that +sometimes he did not venture to speak in order not to betray the unsteadiness +of his voice. He remembered the bitterness of his life at school, the +humiliation which he had endured, the banter which had made him morbidly afraid +of making himself ridiculous; and he remembered the loneliness he had felt +since, faced with the world, the disillusion and the disappointment caused by +the difference between what it promised to his active imagination and what it +gave. But notwithstanding he was able to look at himself from the outside and +smile with amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, if I weren’t flippant, I should hang myself,” he +thought cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +His mind went back to the answer he had given his uncle when he asked him what +he had learnt in Paris. He had learnt a good deal more than he told him. A +conversation with Cronshaw had stuck in his memory, and one phrase he had used, +a commonplace one enough, had set his brain working. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow,” Cronshaw said, “there’s no such thing +as abstract morality.” +</p> + +<p> +When Philip ceased to believe in Christianity he felt that a great weight was +taken from his shoulders; casting off the responsibility which weighed down +every action, when every action was infinitely important for the welfare of his +immortal soul, he experienced a vivid sense of liberty. But he knew now that +this was an illusion. When he put away the religion in which he had been +brought up, he had kept unimpaired the morality which was part and parcel of +it. He made up his mind therefore to think things out for himself. He +determined to be swayed by no prejudices. He swept away the virtues and the +vices, the established laws of good and evil, with the idea of finding out the +rules of life for himself. He did not know whether rules were necessary at all. +That was one of the things he wanted to discover. Clearly much that seemed +valid seemed so only because he had been taught it from his earliest youth. He +had read a number of books, but they did not help him much, for they were based +on the morality of Christianity; and even the writers who emphasised the fact +that they did not believe in it were never satisfied till they had framed a +system of ethics in accordance with that of the Sermon on the Mount. It seemed +hardly worth while to read a long volume in order to learn that you ought to +behave exactly like everybody else. Philip wanted to find out how he ought to +behave, and he thought he could prevent himself from being influenced by the +opinions that surrounded him. But meanwhile he had to go on living, and, until +he formed a theory of conduct, he made himself a provisional rule. +</p> + +<p> +“Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the +corner.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought the best thing he had gained in Paris was a complete liberty of +spirit, and he felt himself at last absolutely free. In a desultory way he had +read a good deal of philosophy, and he looked forward with delight to the +leisure of the next few months. He began to read at haphazard. He entered upon +each system with a little thrill of excitement, expecting to find in each some +guide by which he could rule his conduct; he felt himself like a traveller in +unknown countries and as he pushed forward the enterprise fascinated him; he +read emotionally, as other men read pure literature, and his heart leaped as he +discovered in noble words what himself had obscurely felt. His mind was +concrete and moved with difficulty in regions of the abstract; but, even when +he could not follow the reasoning, it gave him a curious pleasure to follow the +tortuosities of thoughts that threaded their nimble way on the edge of the +incomprehensible. Sometimes great philosophers seemed to have nothing to say to +him, but at others he recognised a mind with which he felt himself at home. He +was like the explorer in Central Africa who comes suddenly upon wide uplands, +with great trees in them and stretches of meadow, so that he might fancy +himself in an English park. He delighted in the robust common sense of Thomas +Hobbes; Spinoza filled him with awe, he had never before come in contact with a +mind so noble, so unapproachable and austere; it reminded him of that statue by +Rodin, L’Age d’Airain, which he passionately admired; and then +there was Hume: the scepticism of that charming philosopher touched a kindred +note in Philip; and, revelling in the lucid style which seemed able to put +complicated thought into simple words, musical and measured, he read as he +might have read a novel, a smile of pleasure on his lips. But in none could he +find exactly what he wanted. He had read somewhere that every man was born a +Platonist, an Aristotelian, a Stoic, or an Epicurean; and the history of George +Henry Lewes (besides telling you that philosophy was all moonshine) was there +to show that the thought of each philosopher was inseparably connected with the +man he was. When you knew that you could guess to a great extent the philosophy +he wrote. It looked as though you did not act in a certain way because you +thought in a certain way, but rather that you thought in a certain way because +you were made in a certain way. Truth had nothing to do with it. There was no +such thing as truth. Each man was his own philosopher, and the elaborate +systems which the great men of the past had composed were only valid for the +writers. +</p> + +<p> +The thing then was to discover what one was and one’s system of +philosophy would devise itself. It seemed to Philip that there were three +things to find out: man’s relation to the world he lives in, man’s +relation with the men among whom he lives, and finally man’s relation to +himself. He made an elaborate plan of study. +</p> + +<p> +The advantage of living abroad is that, coming in contact with the manners and +customs of the people among whom you live, you observe them from the outside +and see that they have not the necessity which those who practise them believe. +You cannot fail to discover that the beliefs which to you are self-evident to +the foreigner are absurd. The year in Germany, the long stay in Paris, had +prepared Philip to receive the sceptical teaching which came to him now with +such a feeling of relief. He saw that nothing was good and nothing was evil; +things were merely adapted to an end. He read The Origin of Species. It seemed +to offer an explanation of much that troubled him. He was like an explorer now +who has reasoned that certain natural features must present themselves, and, +beating up a broad river, finds here the tributary that he expected, there the +fertile, populated plains, and further on the mountains. When some great +discovery is made the world is surprised afterwards that it was not accepted at +once, and even on those who acknowledge its truth the effect is unimportant. +The first readers of The Origin of Species accepted it with their reason; but +their emotions, which are the ground of conduct, were untouched. Philip was +born a generation after this great book was published, and much that horrified +its contemporaries had passed into the feeling of the time, so that he was able +to accept it with a joyful heart. He was intensely moved by the grandeur of the +struggle for life, and the ethical rule which it suggested seemed to fit in +with his predispositions. He said to himself that might was right. Society +stood on one side, an organism with its own laws of growth and +self-preservation, while the individual stood on the other. The actions which +were to the advantage of society it termed virtuous and those which were not it +called vicious. Good and evil meant nothing more than that. Sin was a prejudice +from which the free man should rid himself. Society had three arms in its +contest with the individual, laws, public opinion, and conscience: the first +two could be met by guile, guile is the only weapon of the weak against the +strong: common opinion put the matter well when it stated that sin consisted in +being found out; but conscience was the traitor within the gates; it fought in +each heart the battle of society, and caused the individual to throw himself, a +wanton sacrifice, to the prosperity of his enemy. For it was clear that the two +were irreconcilable, the state and the individual conscious of himself. THAT +uses the individual for its own ends, trampling upon him if he thwarts it, +rewarding him with medals, pensions, honours, when he serves it faithfully; +THIS, strong only in his independence, threads his way through the state, for +convenience’ sake, paying in money or service for certain benefits, but +with no sense of obligation; and, indifferent to the rewards, asks only to be +left alone. He is the independent traveller, who uses Cook’s tickets +because they save trouble, but looks with good-humoured contempt on the +personally conducted parties. The free man can do no wrong. He does everything +he likes—if he can. His power is the only measure of his morality. He +recognises the laws of the state and he can break them without sense of sin, +but if he is punished he accepts the punishment without rancour. Society has +the power. +</p> + +<p> +But if for the individual there was no right and no wrong, then it seemed to +Philip that conscience lost its power. It was with a cry of triumph that he +seized the knave and flung him from his breast. But he was no nearer to the +meaning of life than he had been before. Why the world was there and what men +had come into existence for at all was as inexplicable as ever. Surely there +must be some reason. He thought of Cronshaw’s parable of the Persian +carpet. He offered it as a solution of the riddle, and mysteriously he stated +that it was no answer at all unless you found it out for yourself. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what the devil he meant,” Philip smiled. +</p> + +<p> +And so, on the last day of September, eager to put into practice all these new +theories of life, Philip, with sixteen hundred pounds and his club-foot, set +out for the second time to London to make his third start in life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LIV</h2> + +<p> +The examination Philip had passed before he was articled to a chartered +accountant was sufficient qualification for him to enter a medical school. He +chose St. Luke’s because his father had been a student there, and before +the end of the summer session had gone up to London for a day in order to see +the secretary. He got a list of rooms from him, and took lodgings in a dingy +house which had the advantage of being within two minutes’ walk of the +hospital. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to arrange about a part to dissect,” the +secretary told him. “You’d better start on a leg; they generally +do; they seem to think it easier.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip found that his first lecture was in anatomy, at eleven, and about half +past ten he limped across the road, and a little nervously made his way to the +Medical School. Just inside the door a number of notices were pinned up, lists +of lectures, football fixtures, and the like; and these he looked at idly, +trying to seem at his ease. Young men and boys dribbled in and looked for +letters in the rack, chatted with one another, and passed downstairs to the +basement, in which was the student’s reading-room. Philip saw several +fellows with a desultory, timid look dawdling around, and surmised that, like +himself, they were there for the first time. When he had exhausted the notices +he saw a glass door which led into what was apparently a museum, and having +still twenty minutes to spare he walked in. It was a collection of pathological +specimens. Presently a boy of about eighteen came up to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, are you first year?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the lecture room, d’you know? It’s getting on +for eleven.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’d better try to find it.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked out of the museum into a long, dark corridor, with the walls +painted in two shades of red, and other youths walking along suggested the way +to them. They came to a door marked Anatomy Theatre. Philip found that there +were a good many people already there. The seats were arranged in tiers, and +just as Philip entered an attendant came in, put a glass of water on the table +in the well of the lecture-room and then brought in a pelvis and two +thigh-bones, right and left. More men entered and took their seats and by +eleven the theatre was fairly full. There were about sixty students. For the +most part they were a good deal younger than Philip, smooth-faced boys of +eighteen, but there were a few who were older than he: he noticed one tall man, +with a fierce red moustache, who might have been thirty; another little fellow +with black hair, only a year or two younger; and there was one man with +spectacles and a beard which was quite gray. +</p> + +<p> +The lecturer came in, Mr. Cameron, a handsome man with white hair and clean-cut +features. He called out the long list of names. Then he made a little speech. +He spoke in a pleasant voice, with well-chosen words, and he seemed to take a +discreet pleasure in their careful arrangement. He suggested one or two books +which they might buy and advised the purchase of a skeleton. He spoke of +anatomy with enthusiasm: it was essential to the study of surgery; a knowledge +of it added to the appreciation of art. Philip pricked up his ears. He heard +later that Mr. Cameron lectured also to the students at the Royal Academy. He +had lived many years in Japan, with a post at the University of Tokyo, and he +flattered himself on his appreciation of the beautiful. +</p> + +<p> +“You will have to learn many tedious things,” he finished, with an +indulgent smile, “which you will forget the moment you have passed your +final examination, but in anatomy it is better to have learned and lost than +never to have learned at all.” +</p> + +<p> +He took up the pelvis which was lying on the table and began to describe it. He +spoke well and clearly. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the lecture the boy who had spoken to Philip in the pathological +museum and sat next to him in the theatre suggested that they should go to the +dissecting-room. Philip and he walked along the corridor again, and an +attendant told them where it was. As soon as they entered Philip understood +what the acrid smell was which he had noticed in the passage. He lit a pipe. +The attendant gave a short laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll soon get used to the smell. I don’t notice it +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +He asked Philip’s name and looked at a list on the board. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a leg—number four.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip saw that another name was bracketed with his own. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the meaning of that?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re very short of bodies just now. We’ve had to put two on +each part.” +</p> + +<p> +The dissecting-room was a large apartment painted like the corridors, the upper +part a rich salmon and the dado a dark terra-cotta. At regular intervals down +the long sides of the room, at right angles with the wall, were iron slabs, +grooved like meat-dishes; and on each lay a body. Most of them were men. They +were very dark from the preservative in which they had been kept, and the skin +had almost the look of leather. They were extremely emaciated. The attendant +took Philip up to one of the slabs. A youth was standing by it. +</p> + +<p> +“Is your name Carey?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, then we’ve got this leg together. It’s lucky it’s +a man, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“They generally always like a male better,” said the attendant. +“A female’s liable to have a lot of fat about her.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at the body. The arms and legs were so thin that there was no +shape in them, and the ribs stood out so that the skin over them was tense. A +man of about forty-five with a thin, gray beard, and on his skull scanty, +colourless hair: the eyes were closed and the lower jaw sunken. Philip could +not feel that this had ever been a man, and yet in the row of them there was +something terrible and ghastly. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d start at two,” said the young man who was +dissecting with Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, I’ll be here then.” +</p> + +<p> +He had bought the day before the case of instruments which was needful, and now +he was given a locker. He looked at the boy who had accompanied him into the +dissecting-room and saw that he was white. +</p> + +<p> +“Make you feel rotten?” Philip asked him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never seen anyone dead before.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked along the corridor till they came to the entrance of the school. +Philip remembered Fanny Price. She was the first dead person he had ever seen, +and he remembered how strangely it had affected him. There was an immeasurable +distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the +same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they +had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed. There was something horrible about +the dead, and you could imagine that they might cast an evil influence on the +living. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you say to having something to eat?” said his new +friend to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +They went down into the basement, where there was a dark room fitted up as a +restaurant, and here the students were able to get the same sort of fare as +they might have at an aerated bread shop. While they ate (Philip had a scone +and butter and a cup of chocolate), he discovered that his companion was called +Dunsford. He was a fresh-complexioned lad, with pleasant blue eyes and curly, +dark hair, large-limbed, slow of speech and movement. He had just come from +Clifton. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you taking the Conjoint?” he asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I want to get qualified as soon as I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m taking it too, but I shall take the F. R. C. S. afterwards. +I’m going in for surgery.” +</p> + +<p> +Most of the students took the curriculum of the Conjoint Board of the College +of Surgeons and the College of Physicians; but the more ambitious or the more +industrious added to this the longer studies which led to a degree from the +University of London. When Philip went to St. Luke’s changes had recently +been made in the regulations, and the course took five years instead of four as +it had done for those who registered before the autumn of 1892. Dunsford was +well up in his plans and told Philip the usual course of events. The +“first conjoint” examination consisted of biology, anatomy, and +chemistry; but it could be taken in sections, and most fellows took their +biology three months after entering the school. This science had been recently +added to the list of subjects upon which the student was obliged to inform +himself, but the amount of knowledge required was very small. +</p> + +<p> +When Philip went back to the dissecting-room, he was a few minutes late, since +he had forgotten to buy the loose sleeves which they wore to protect their +shirts, and he found a number of men already working. His partner had started +on the minute and was busy dissecting out cutaneous nerves. Two others were +engaged on the second leg, and more were occupied with the arms. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mind my having started?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, fire away,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He took the book, open at a diagram of the dissected part, and looked at what +they had to find. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re rather a dab at this,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ve done a good deal of dissecting before, animals, you know, +for the Pre Sci.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a certain amount of conversation over the dissecting-table, partly +about the work, partly about the prospects of the football season, the +demonstrators, and the lectures. Philip felt himself a great deal older than +the others. They were raw schoolboys. But age is a matter of knowledge rather +than of years; and Newson, the active young man who was dissecting with him, +was very much at home with his subject. He was perhaps not sorry to show off, +and he explained very fully to Philip what he was about. Philip, +notwithstanding his hidden stores of wisdom, listened meekly. Then Philip took +up the scalpel and the tweezers and began working while the other looked on. +</p> + +<p> +“Ripping to have him so thin,” said Newson, wiping his hands. +“The blighter can’t have had anything to eat for a month.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what he died of,” murmured Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know, any old thing, starvation chiefly, I suppose…. I +say, look out, don’t cut that artery.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all very fine to say, don’t cut that artery,” +remarked one of the men working on the opposite leg. “Silly old +fool’s got an artery in the wrong place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Arteries always are in the wrong place,” said Newson. “The +normal’s the one thing you practically never get. That’s why +it’s called the normal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say things like that,” said Philip, “or I shall +cut myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you cut yourself,” answered Newson, full of information, +“wash it at once with antiseptic. It’s the one thing you’ve +got to be careful about. There was a chap here last year who gave himself only +a prick, and he didn’t bother about it, and he got septicaemia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he get all right?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, he died in a week. I went and had a look at him in the P. M. +room.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s back ached by the time it was proper to have tea, and his +luncheon had been so light that he was quite ready for it. His hands smelt of +that peculiar odour which he had first noticed that morning in the corridor. He +thought his muffin tasted of it too. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’ll get used to that,” said Newson. “When you +don’t have the good old dissecting-room stink about, you feel quite +lonely.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to let it spoil my appetite,” said Philip, as +he followed up the muffin with a piece of cake. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LV</h2> + +<p> +Philip’s ideas of the life of medical students, like those of the public +at large, were founded on the pictures which Charles Dickens drew in the middle +of the nineteenth century. He soon discovered that Bob Sawyer, if he ever +existed, was no longer at all like the medical student of the present. +</p> + +<p> +It is a mixed lot which enters upon the medical profession, and naturally there +are some who are lazy and reckless. They think it is an easy life, idle away a +couple of years; and then, because their funds come to an end or because angry +parents refuse any longer to support them, drift away from the hospital. Others +find the examinations too hard for them; one failure after another robs them of +their nerve; and, panic-stricken, they forget as soon as they come into the +forbidding buildings of the Conjoint Board the knowledge which before they had +so pat. They remain year after year, objects of good-humoured scorn to younger +men: some of them crawl through the examination of the Apothecaries Hall; +others become non-qualified assistants, a precarious position in which they are +at the mercy of their employer; their lot is poverty, drunkenness, and Heaven +only knows their end. But for the most part medical students are industrious +young men of the middle-class with a sufficient allowance to live in the +respectable fashion they have been used to; many are the sons of doctors who +have already something of the professional manner; their career is mapped out: +as soon as they are qualified they propose to apply for a hospital appointment, +after holding which (and perhaps a trip to the Far East as a ship’s +doctor), they will join their father and spend the rest of their days in a +country practice. One or two are marked out as exceptionally brilliant: they +will take the various prizes and scholarships which are open each year to the +deserving, get one appointment after another at the hospital, go on the staff, +take a consulting-room in Harley Street, and, specialising in one subject or +another, become prosperous, eminent, and titled. +</p> + +<p> +The medical profession is the only one which a man may enter at any age with +some chance of making a living. Among the men of Philip’s year were three +or four who were past their first youth: one had been in the Navy, from which +according to report he had been dismissed for drunkenness; he was a man of +thirty, with a red face, a brusque manner, and a loud voice. Another was a +married man with two children, who had lost money through a defaulting +solicitor; he had a bowed look as if the world were too much for him; he went +about his work silently, and it was plain that he found it difficult at his age +to commit facts to memory. His mind worked slowly. His effort at application +was painful to see. +</p> + +<p> +Philip made himself at home in his tiny rooms. He arranged his books and hung +on the walls such pictures and sketches as he possessed. Above him, on the +drawing-room floor, lived a fifth-year man called Griffiths; but Philip saw +little of him, partly because he was occupied chiefly in the wards and partly +because he had been to Oxford. Such of the students as had been to a university +kept a good deal together: they used a variety of means natural to the young in +order to impress upon the less fortunate a proper sense of their inferiority; +the rest of the students found their Olympian serenity rather hard to bear. +Griffiths was a tall fellow, with a quantity of curly red hair and blue eyes, a +white skin and a very red mouth; he was one of those fortunate people whom +everybody liked, for he had high spirits and a constant gaiety. He strummed a +little on the piano and sang comic songs with gusto; and evening after evening, +while Philip was reading in his solitary room, he heard the shouts and the +uproarious laughter of Griffiths’ friends above him. He thought of those +delightful evenings in Paris when they would sit in the studio, Lawson and he, +Flanagan and Clutton, and talk of art and morals, the love-affairs of the +present, and the fame of the future. He felt sick at heart. He found that it +was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results. The worst +of it was that the work seemed to him very tedious. He had got out of the habit +of being asked questions by demonstrators. His attention wandered at lectures. +Anatomy was a dreary science, a mere matter of learning by heart an enormous +number of facts; dissection bored him; he did not see the use of dissecting out +laboriously nerves and arteries when with much less trouble you could see in +the diagrams of a book or in the specimens of the pathological museum exactly +where they were. +</p> + +<p> +He made friends by chance, but not intimate friends, for he seemed to have +nothing in particular to say to his companions. When he tried to interest +himself in their concerns, he felt that they found him patronising. He was not +of those who can talk of what moves them without caring whether it bores or not +the people they talk to. One man, hearing that he had studied art in Paris, and +fancying himself on his taste, tried to discuss art with him; but Philip was +impatient of views which did not agree with his own; and, finding quickly that +the other’s ideas were conventional, grew monosyllabic. Philip desired +popularity but could bring himself to make no advances to others. A fear of +rebuff prevented him from affability, and he concealed his shyness, which was +still intense, under a frigid taciturnity. He was going through the same +experience as he had done at school, but here the freedom of the medical +students’ life made it possible for him to live a good deal by himself. +</p> + +<p> +It was through no effort of his that he became friendly with Dunsford, the +fresh-complexioned, heavy lad whose acquaintance he had made at the beginning +of the session. Dunsford attached himself to Philip merely because he was the +first person he had known at St. Luke’s. He had no friends in London, and +on Saturday nights he and Philip got into the habit of going together to the +pit of a music-hall or the gallery of a theatre. He was stupid, but he was +good-humoured and never took offence; he always said the obvious thing, but +when Philip laughed at him merely smiled. He had a very sweet smile. Though +Philip made him his butt, he liked him; he was amused by his candour and +delighted with his agreeable nature: Dunsford had the charm which himself was +acutely conscious of not possessing. +</p> + +<p> +They often went to have tea at a shop in Parliament Street, because Dunsford +admired one of the young women who waited. Philip did not find anything +attractive in her. She was tall and thin, with narrow hips and the chest of a +boy. +</p> + +<p> +“No one would look at her in Paris,” said Philip scornfully. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s got a ripping face,” said Dunsford. +</p> + +<p> +“What DOES the face matter?” +</p> + +<p> +She had the small regular features, the blue eyes, and the broad low brow, +which the Victorian painters, Lord Leighton, Alma Tadema, and a hundred others, +induced the world they lived in to accept as a type of Greek beauty. She seemed +to have a great deal of hair: it was arranged with peculiar elaboration and +done over the forehead in what she called an Alexandra fringe. She was very +anaemic. Her thin lips were pale, and her skin was delicate, of a faint green +colour, without a touch of red even in the cheeks. She had very good teeth. She +took great pains to prevent her work from spoiling her hands, and they were +small, thin, and white. She went about her duties with a bored look. +</p> + +<p> +Dunsford, very shy with women, had never succeeded in getting into conversation +with her; and he urged Philip to help him. +</p> + +<p> +“All I want is a lead,” he said, “and then I can manage for +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, to please him, made one or two remarks, but she answered with +monosyllables. She had taken their measure. They were boys, and she surmised +they were students. She had no use for them. Dunsford noticed that a man with +sandy hair and a bristly moustache, who looked like a German, was favoured with +her attention whenever he came into the shop; and then it was only by calling +her two or three times that they could induce her to take their order. She used +the clients whom she did not know with frigid insolence, and when she was +talking to a friend was perfectly indifferent to the calls of the hurried. She +had the art of treating women who desired refreshment with just that degree of +impertinence which irritated them without affording them an opportunity of +complaining to the management. One day Dunsford told him her name was Mildred. +He had heard one of the other girls in the shop address her. +</p> + +<p> +“What an odious name,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked Dunsford. +</p> + +<p> +“I like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so pretentious.” +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that on this day the German was not there, and, when she brought the +tea, Philip, smiling, remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“Your friend’s not here today.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean,” she said coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“I was referring to the nobleman with the sandy moustache. Has he left +you for another?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some people would do better to mind their own business,” she +retorted. +</p> + +<p> +She left them, and, since for a minute or two there was no one to attend to, +sat down and looked at the evening paper which a customer had left behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a fool to put her back up,” said Dunsford. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m really quite indifferent to the attitude of her +vertebrae,” replied Philip. +</p> + +<p> +But he was piqued. It irritated him that when he tried to be agreeable with a +woman she should take offence. When he asked for the bill, he hazarded a remark +which he meant to lead further. +</p> + +<p> +“Are we no longer on speaking terms?” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m here to take orders and to wait on customers. I’ve got +nothing to say to them, and I don’t want them to say anything to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +She put down the slip of paper on which she had marked the sum they had to pay, +and walked back to the table at which she had been sitting. Philip flushed with +anger. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s one in the eye for you, Carey,” said Dunsford, when +they got outside. +</p> + +<p> +“Ill-mannered slut,” said Philip. “I shan’t go there +again.” +</p> + +<p> +His influence with Dunsford was strong enough to get him to take their tea +elsewhere, and Dunsford soon found another young woman to flirt with. But the +snub which the waitress had inflicted on him rankled. If she had treated him +with civility he would have been perfectly indifferent to her; but it was +obvious that she disliked him rather than otherwise, and his pride was wounded. +He could not suppress a desire to be even with her. He was impatient with +himself because he had so petty a feeling, but three or four days’ +firmness, during which he would not go to the shop, did not help him to +surmount it; and he came to the conclusion that it would be least trouble to +see her. Having done so he would certainly cease to think of her. Pretexting an +appointment one afternoon, for he was not a little ashamed of his weakness, he +left Dunsford and went straight to the shop which he had vowed never again to +enter. He saw the waitress the moment he came in and sat down at one of her +tables. He expected her to make some reference to the fact that he had not been +there for a week, but when she came up for his order she said nothing. He had +heard her say to other customers: +</p> + +<p> +“You’re quite a stranger.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave no sign that she had ever seen him before. In order to see whether she +had really forgotten him, when she brought his tea, he asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen my friend tonight?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he’s not been in here for some days.” +</p> + +<p> +He wanted to use this as the beginning of a conversation, but he was strangely +nervous and could think of nothing to say. She gave him no opportunity, but at +once went away. He had no chance of saying anything till he asked for his bill. +</p> + +<p> +“Filthy weather, isn’t it?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was mortifying that he had been forced to prepare such a phrase as that. He +could not make out why she filled him with such embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +“It don’t make much difference to me what the weather is, having to +be in here all day.” +</p> + +<p> +There was an insolence in her tone that peculiarly irritated him. A sarcasm +rose to his lips, but he forced himself to be silent. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to God she’d say something really cheeky,” he raged +to himself, “so that I could report her and get her sacked. It would +serve her damned well right.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LVI</h2> + +<p> +He could not get her out of his mind. He laughed angrily at his own +foolishness: it was absurd to care what an anaemic little waitress said to him; +but he was strangely humiliated. Though no one knew of the humiliation but +Dunsford, and he had certainly forgotten, Philip felt that he could have no +peace till he had wiped it out. He thought over what he had better do. He made +up his mind that he would go to the shop every day; it was obvious that he had +made a disagreeable impression on her, but he thought he had the wits to +eradicate it; he would take care not to say anything at which the most +susceptible person could be offended. All this he did, but it had no effect. +When he went in and said good-evening she answered with the same words, but +when once he omitted to say it in order to see whether she would say it first, +she said nothing at all. He murmured in his heart an expression which though +frequently applicable to members of the female sex is not often used of them in +polite society; but with an unmoved face he ordered his tea. He made up his +mind not to speak a word, and left the shop without his usual good-night. He +promised himself that he would not go any more, but the next day at tea-time he +grew restless. He tried to think of other things, but he had no command over +his thoughts. At last he said desperately: +</p> + +<p> +“After all there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go if I want +to.” +</p> + +<p> +The struggle with himself had taken a long time, and it was getting on for +seven when he entered the shop. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you weren’t coming,” the girl said to him, when he +sat down. +</p> + +<p> +His heart leaped in his bosom and he felt himself reddening. “I was +detained. I couldn’t come before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cutting up people, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so bad as that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a stoodent, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +But that seemed to satisfy her curiosity. She went away and, since at that late +hour there was nobody else at her tables, she immersed herself in a novelette. +This was before the time of the sixpenny reprints. There was a regular supply +of inexpensive fiction written to order by poor hacks for the consumption of +the illiterate. Philip was elated; she had addressed him of her own accord; he +saw the time approaching when his turn would come and he would tell her exactly +what he thought of her. It would be a great comfort to express the immensity of +his contempt. He looked at her. It was true that her profile was beautiful; it +was extraordinary how English girls of that class had so often a perfection of +outline which took your breath away, but it was as cold as marble; and the +faint green of her delicate skin gave an impression of unhealthiness. All the +waitresses were dressed alike, in plain black dresses, with a white apron, +cuffs, and a small cap. On a half sheet of paper that he had in his pocket +Philip made a sketch of her as she sat leaning over her book (she outlined the +words with her lips as she read), and left it on the table when he went away. +It was an inspiration, for next day, when he came in, she smiled at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know you could draw,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I was an art-student in Paris for two years.” +</p> + +<p> +“I showed that drawing you left be’ind you last night to the +manageress and she WAS struck with it. Was it meant to be me?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +When she went for his tea, one of the other girls came up to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw that picture you done of Miss Rogers. It was the very image of +her,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +That was the first time he had heard her name, and when he wanted his bill he +called her by it. +</p> + +<p> +“I see you know my name,” she said, when she came. +</p> + +<p> +“Your friend mentioned it when she said something to me about that +drawing.” +</p> + +<p> +“She wants you to do one of her. Don’t you do it. If you once begin +you’ll have to go on, and they’ll all be wanting you to do +them.” Then without a pause, with peculiar inconsequence, she said: +“Where’s that young fellow that used to come with you? Has he gone +away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy your remembering him,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“He was a nice-looking young fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt quite a peculiar sensation in his heart. He did not know what it +was. Dunsford had jolly curling hair, a fresh complexion, and a beautiful +smile. Philip thought of these advantages with envy. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s in love,” said he, with a little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Philip repeated every word of the conversation to himself as he limped home. +She was quite friendly with him now. When opportunity arose he would offer to +make a more finished sketch of her, he was sure she would like that; her face +was interesting, the profile was lovely, and there was something curiously +fascinating about the chlorotic colour. He tried to think what it was like; at +first he thought of pea soup; but, driving away that idea angrily, he thought +of the petals of a yellow rosebud when you tore it to pieces before it had +burst. He had no ill-feeling towards her now. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not a bad sort,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +It was silly of him to take offence at what she had said; it was doubtless his +own fault; she had not meant to make herself disagreeable: he ought to be +accustomed by now to making at first sight a bad impression on people. He was +flattered at the success of his drawing; she looked upon him with more interest +now that she was aware of this small talent. He was restless next day. He +thought of going to lunch at the tea-shop, but he was certain there would be +many people there then, and Mildred would not be able to talk to him. He had +managed before this to get out of having tea with Dunsford, and, punctually at +half past four (he had looked at his watch a dozen times), he went into the +shop. +</p> + +<p> +Mildred had her back turned to him. She was sitting down, talking to the German +whom Philip had seen there every day till a fortnight ago and since then had +not seen at all. She was laughing at what he said. Philip thought she had a +common laugh, and it made him shudder. He called her, but she took no notice; +he called her again; then, growing angry, for he was impatient, he rapped the +table loudly with his stick. She approached sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +“How d’you do?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to be in a great hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked down at him with the insolent manner which he knew so well. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, what’s the matter with you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll kindly give your order I’ll get what you want. I +can’t stand talking all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tea and toasted bun, please,” Philip answered briefly. +</p> + +<p> +He was furious with her. He had The Star with him and read it elaborately when +she brought the tea. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll give me my bill now I needn’t trouble you +again,” he said icily. +</p> + +<p> +She wrote out the slip, placed it on the table, and went back to the German. +Soon she was talking to him with animation. He was a man of middle height, with +the round head of his nation and a sallow face; his moustache was large and +bristling; he had on a tail-coat and gray trousers, and he wore a massive gold +watch-chain. Philip thought the other girls looked from him to the pair at the +table and exchanged significant glances. He felt certain they were laughing at +him, and his blood boiled. He detested Mildred now with all his heart. He knew +that the best thing he could do was to cease coming to the tea-shop, but he +could not bear to think that he had been worsted in the affair, and he devised +a plan to show her that he despised her. Next day he sat down at another table +and ordered his tea from another waitress. Mildred’s friend was there +again and she was talking to him. She paid no attention to Philip, and so when +he went out he chose a moment when she had to cross his path: as he passed he +looked at her as though he had never seen her before. He repeated this for +three or four days. He expected that presently she would take the opportunity +to say something to him; he thought she would ask why he never came to one of +her tables now, and he had prepared an answer charged with all the loathing he +felt for her. He knew it was absurd to trouble, but he could not help himself. +She had beaten him again. The German suddenly disappeared, but Philip still sat +at other tables. She paid no attention to him. Suddenly he realised that what +he did was a matter of complete indifference to her; he could go on in that way +till doomsday, and it would have no effect. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve not finished yet,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +The day after he sat down in his old seat, and when she came up said +good-evening as though he had not ignored her for a week. His face was placid, +but he could not prevent the mad beating of his heart. At that time the musical +comedy had lately leaped into public favour, and he was sure that Mildred would +be delighted to go to one. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he said suddenly, “I wonder if you’d dine with +me one night and come to The Belle of New York. I’ll get a couple of +stalls.” +</p> + +<p> +He added the last sentence in order to tempt her. He knew that when the girls +went to the play it was either in the pit, or, if some man took them, seldom to +more expensive seats than the upper circle. Mildred’s pale face showed no +change of expression. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“When will you come?” +</p> + +<p> +“I get off early on Thursdays.” +</p> + +<p> +They made arrangements. Mildred lived with an aunt at Herne Hill. The play +began at eight so they must dine at seven. She proposed that he should meet her +in the second-class waiting-room at Victoria Station. She showed no pleasure, +but accepted the invitation as though she conferred a favour. Philip was +vaguely irritated. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LVII</h2> + +<p> +Philip arrived at Victoria Station nearly half an hour before the time which +Mildred had appointed, and sat down in the second-class waiting-room. He waited +and she did not come. He began to grow anxious, and walked into the station +watching the incoming suburban trains; the hour which she had fixed passed, and +still there was no sign of her. Philip was impatient. He went into the other +waiting-rooms and looked at the people sitting in them. Suddenly his heart gave +a great thud. +</p> + +<p> +“There you are. I thought you were never coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like that after keeping me waiting all this time. I had half a mind to +go back home again.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you said you’d come to the second-class waiting-room.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say any such thing. It isn’t exactly likely +I’d sit in the second-class room when I could sit in the first is +it?” +</p> + +<p> +Though Philip was sure he had not made a mistake, he said nothing, and they got +into a cab. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are we dining?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of the Adelphi Restaurant. Will that suit you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind where we dine.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke ungraciously. She was put out by being kept waiting and answered +Philip’s attempt at conversation with monosyllables. She wore a long +cloak of some rough, dark material and a crochet shawl over her head. They +reached the restaurant and sat down at a table. She looked round with +satisfaction. The red shades to the candles on the tables, the gold of the +decorations, the looking-glasses, lent the room a sumptuous air. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never been here before.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave Philip a smile. She had taken off her cloak; and he saw that she wore +a pale blue dress, cut square at the neck; and her hair was more elaborately +arranged than ever. He had ordered champagne and when it came her eyes +sparkled. +</p> + +<p> +“You are going it,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I’ve ordered fiz?” he asked carelessly, as though he +never drank anything else. +</p> + +<p> +“I WAS surprised when you asked me to do a theatre with you.” +Conversation did not go very easily, for she did not seem to have much to say; +and Philip was nervously conscious that he was not amusing her. She listened +carelessly to his remarks, with her eyes on other diners, and made no pretence +that she was interested in him. He made one or two little jokes, but she took +them quite seriously. The only sign of vivacity he got was when he spoke of the +other girls in the shop; she could not bear the manageress and told him all her +misdeeds at length. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t stick her at any price and all the air she gives herself. +Sometimes I’ve got more than half a mind to tell her something she +doesn’t think I know anything about.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I happen to know that she’s not above going to Eastbourne +with a man for the week-end now and again. One of the girls has a married +sister who goes there with her husband, and she’s seen her. She was +staying at the same boarding-house, and she ’ad a wedding-ring on, and I +know for one she’s not married.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip filled her glass, hoping that champagne would make her more affable; he +was anxious that his little jaunt should be a success. He noticed that she held +her knife as though it were a pen-holder, and when she drank protruded her +little finger. He started several topics of conversation, but he could get +little out of her, and he remembered with irritation that he had seen her +talking nineteen to the dozen and laughing with the German. They finished +dinner and went to the play. Philip was a very cultured young man, and he +looked upon musical comedy with scorn. He thought the jokes vulgar and the +melodies obvious; it seemed to him that they did these things much better in +France; but Mildred enjoyed herself thoroughly; she laughed till her sides +ached, looking at Philip now and then when something tickled her to exchange a +glance of pleasure; and she applauded rapturously. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the seventh time I’ve been,” she said, after the +first act, “and I don’t mind if I come seven times more.” +</p> + +<p> +She was much interested in the women who surrounded them in the stalls. She +pointed out to Philip those who were painted and those who wore false hair. +</p> + +<p> +“It is horrible, these West-end people,” she said. “I +don’t know how they can do it.” She put her hand to her hair. +“Mine’s all my own, every bit of it.” +</p> + +<p> +She found no one to admire, and whenever she spoke of anyone it was to say +something disagreeable. It made Philip uneasy. He supposed that next day she +would tell the girls in the shop that he had taken her out and that he had +bored her to death. He disliked her, and yet, he knew not why, he wanted to be +with her. On the way home he asked: +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you come out with me again one evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He could never get beyond such expressions as that. Her indifference maddened +him. +</p> + +<p> +“That sounds as if you didn’t much care if you came or not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if you don’t take me out some other fellow will. I need never +want for men who’ll take me to the theatre.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent. They came to the station, and he went to the booking-office. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got my season,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d take you home as it’s rather late, if you +don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mind if it gives you any pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +He took a single first for her and a return for himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’re not mean, I will say that for you,” she said, +when he opened the carriage-door. +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not know whether he was pleased or sorry when other people entered +and it was impossible to speak. They got out at Herne Hill, and he accompanied +her to the corner of the road in which she lived. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll say good-night to you here,” she said, holding out her +hand. “You’d better not come up to the door. I know what people +are, and I don’t want to have anybody talking.” +</p> + +<p> +She said good-night and walked quickly away. He could see the white shawl in +the darkness. He thought she might turn round, but she did not. Philip saw +which house she went into, and in a moment he walked along to look at it. It +was a trim, common little house of yellow brick, exactly like all the other +little houses in the street. He stood outside for a few minutes, and presently +the window on the top floor was darkened. Philip strolled slowly back to the +station. The evening had been unsatisfactory. He felt irritated, restless, and +miserable. +</p> + +<p> +When he lay in bed he seemed still to see her sitting in the corner of the +railway carriage, with the white crochet shawl over her head. He did not know +how he was to get through the hours that must pass before his eyes rested on +her again. He thought drowsily of her thin face, with its delicate features, +and the greenish pallor of her skin. He was not happy with her, but he was +unhappy away from her. He wanted to sit by her side and look at her, he wanted +to touch her, he wanted… the thought came to him and he did not finish it, +suddenly he grew wide awake… he wanted to kiss the thin, pale mouth with its +narrow lips. The truth came to him at last. He was in love with her. It was +incredible. +</p> + +<p> +He had often thought of falling in love, and there was one scene which he had +pictured to himself over and over again. He saw himself coming into a +ball-room; his eyes fell on a little group of men and women talking; and one of +the women turned round. Her eyes fell upon him, and he knew that the gasp in +his throat was in her throat too. He stood quite still. She was tall and dark +and beautiful with eyes like the night; she was dressed in white, and in her +black hair shone diamonds; they stared at one another, forgetting that people +surrounded them. He went straight up to her, and she moved a little towards +him. Both felt that the formality of introduction was out of place. He spoke to +her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been looking for you all my life,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve come at last,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you dance with me?” +</p> + +<p> +She surrendered herself to his outstretched hands and they danced. (Philip +always pretended that he was not lame.) She danced divinely. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never danced with anyone who danced like you,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +She tore up her programme, and they danced together the whole evening. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so thankful that I waited for you,” he said to her. +“I knew that in the end I must meet you.” +</p> + +<p> +People in the ball-room stared. They did not care. They did not wish to hide +their passion. At last they went into the garden. He flung a light cloak over +her shoulders and put her in a waiting cab. They caught the midnight train to +Paris; and they sped through the silent, star-lit night into the unknown. +</p> + +<p> +He thought of this old fancy of his, and it seemed impossible that he should be +in love with Mildred Rogers. Her name was grotesque. He did not think her +pretty; he hated the thinness of her, only that evening he had noticed how the +bones of her chest stood out in evening-dress; he went over her features one by +one; he did not like her mouth, and the unhealthiness of her colour vaguely +repelled him. She was common. Her phrases, so bald and few, constantly +repeated, showed the emptiness of her mind; he recalled her vulgar little laugh +at the jokes of the musical comedy; and he remembered the little finger +carefully extended when she held her glass to her mouth; her manners like her +conversation, were odiously genteel. He remembered her insolence; sometimes he +had felt inclined to box her ears; and suddenly, he knew not why, perhaps it +was the thought of hitting her or the recollection of her tiny, beautiful ears, +he was seized by an uprush of emotion. He yearned for her. He thought of taking +her in his arms, the thin, fragile body, and kissing her pale mouth: he wanted +to pass his fingers down the slightly greenish cheeks. He wanted her. +</p> + +<p> +He had thought of love as a rapture which seized one so that all the world +seemed spring-like, he had looked forward to an ecstatic happiness; but this +was not happiness; it was a hunger of the soul, it was a painful yearning, it +was a bitter anguish, he had never known before. He tried to think when it had +first come to him. He did not know. He only remembered that each time he had +gone into the shop, after the first two or three times, it had been with a +little feeling in the heart that was pain; and he remembered that when she +spoke to him he felt curiously breathless. When she left him it was +wretchedness, and when she came to him again it was despair. +</p> + +<p> +He stretched himself in his bed as a dog stretches himself. He wondered how he +was going to endure that ceaseless aching of his soul. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LVIII</h2> + +<p> +Philip woke early next morning, and his first thought was of Mildred. It struck +him that he might meet her at Victoria Station and walk with her to the shop. +He shaved quickly, scrambled into his clothes, and took a bus to the station. +He was there by twenty to eight and watched the incoming trains. Crowds poured +out of them, clerks and shop-people at that early hour, and thronged up the +platform: they hurried along, sometimes in pairs, here and there a group of +girls, but more often alone. They were white, most of them, ugly in the early +morning, and they had an abstracted look; the younger ones walked lightly, as +though the cement of the platform were pleasant to tread, but the others went +as though impelled by a machine: their faces were set in an anxious frown. +</p> + +<p> +At last Philip saw Mildred, and he went up to her eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning,” he said. “I thought I’d come and see +how you were after last night.” +</p> + +<p> +She wore an old brown ulster and a sailor hat. It was very clear that she was +not pleased to see him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m all right. I haven’t got much time to waste.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mind if I walk down Victoria Street with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m none too early. I shall have to walk fast,” she +answered, looking down at Philip’s club-foot. +</p> + +<p> +He turned scarlet. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon. I won’t detain you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can please yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +She went on, and he with a sinking heart made his way home to breakfast. He +hated her. He knew he was a fool to bother about her; she was not the sort of +woman who would ever care two straws for him, and she must look upon his +deformity with distaste. He made up his mind that he would not go in to tea +that afternoon, but, hating himself, he went. She nodded to him as he came in +and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect I was rather short with you this morning,” she said. +“You see, I didn’t expect you, and it came like a surprise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it doesn’t matter at all.” +</p> + +<p> +He felt that a great weight had suddenly been lifted from him. He was +infinitely grateful for one word of kindness. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you sit down?” he asked. “Nobody’s +wanting you just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind if I do.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her, but could think of nothing to say; he racked his brains +anxiously, seeking for a remark which should keep her by him; he wanted to tell +her how much she meant to him; but he did not know how to make love now that he +loved in earnest. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s your friend with the fair moustache? I haven’t seen +him lately.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s gone back to Birmingham. He’s in business there. He +only comes up to London every now and again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he in love with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better ask him,” she said, with a laugh. “I +don’t know what it’s got to do with you if he is.” +</p> + +<p> +A bitter answer leaped to his tongue, but he was learning self-restraint. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder why you say things like that,” was all he permitted +himself to say. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with those indifferent eyes of hers. +</p> + +<p> +“It looks as if you didn’t set much store on me,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I?” +</p> + +<p> +“No reason at all.” +</p> + +<p> +He reached over for his paper. +</p> + +<p> +“You are quick-tempered,” she said, when she saw the gesture. +“You do take offence easily.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled and looked at her appealingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you do something for me?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That depends what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me walk back to the station with you tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He went out after tea and went back to his rooms, but at eight o’clock, +when the shop closed, he was waiting outside. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a caution,” she said, when she came out. “I +don’t understand you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t have thought it was very difficult,” he answered +bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“Did any of the girls see you waiting for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know and I don’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +“They all laugh at you, you know. They say you’re spoony on +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Much you care,” he muttered. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then, quarrelsome.” +</p> + +<p> +At the station he took a ticket and said he was going to accompany her home. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t seem to have much to do with your time,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I can waste it in my own way.” +</p> + +<p> +They seemed to be always on the verge of a quarrel. The fact was that he hated +himself for loving her. She seemed to be constantly humiliating him, and for +each snub that he endured he owed her a grudge. But she was in a friendly mood +that evening, and talkative: she told him that her parents were dead; she gave +him to understand that she did not have to earn her living, but worked for +amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“My aunt doesn’t like my going to business. I can have the best of +everything at home. I don’t want you to think I work because I need +to.” Philip knew that she was not speaking the truth. The gentility of +her class made her use this pretence to avoid the stigma attached to earning +her living. +</p> + +<p> +“My family’s very well-connected,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled faintly, and she noticed it. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you laughing at?” she said quickly. “Don’t +you believe I’m telling you the truth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I do,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him suspiciously, but in a moment could not resist the temptation +to impress him with the splendour of her early days. +</p> + +<p> +“My father always kept a dog-cart, and we had three servants. We had a +cook and a housemaid and an odd man. We used to grow beautiful roses. People +used to stop at the gate and ask who the house belonged to, the roses were so +beautiful. Of course it isn’t very nice for me having to mix with them +girls in the shop, it’s not the class of person I’ve been used to, +and sometimes I really think I’ll give up business on that account. +It’s not the work I mind, don’t think that; but it’s the +class of people I have to mix with.” +</p> + +<p> +They were sitting opposite one another in the train, and Philip, listening +sympathetically to what she said, was quite happy. He was amused at her naivete +and slightly touched. There was a very faint colour in her cheeks. He was +thinking that it would be delightful to kiss the tip of her chin. +</p> + +<p> +“The moment you come into the shop I saw you was a gentleman in every +sense of the word. Was your father a professional man?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was a doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can always tell a professional man. There’s something about +them, I don’t know what it is, but I know at once.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked along from the station together. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I want you to come and see another play with me,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You might go so far as to say you’d like to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter. Let’s fix a day. Would Saturday night +suit you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’ll do.” +</p> + +<p> +They made further arrangements, and then found themselves at the corner of the +road in which she lived. She gave him her hand, and he held it. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I do so awfully want to call you Mildred.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may if you like, I don’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ll call me Philip, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will if I can think of it. It seems more natural to call you Mr. +Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +He drew her slightly towards him, but she leaned back. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you kiss me good-night?” he whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Impudence!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She snatched away her hand and hurried towards her house. +</p> + +<p> +Philip bought tickets for Saturday night. It was not one of the days on which +she got off early and therefore she would have no time to go home and change; +but she meant to bring a frock up with her in the morning and hurry into her +clothes at the shop. If the manageress was in a good temper she would let her +go at seven. Philip had agreed to wait outside from a quarter past seven +onwards. He looked forward to the occasion with painful eagerness, for in the +cab on the way from the theatre to the station he thought she would let him +kiss her. The vehicle gave every facility for a man to put his arm round a +girl’s waist (an advantage which the hansom had over the taxi of the +present day), and the delight of that was worth the cost of the evening’s +entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +But on Saturday afternoon when he went in to have tea, in order to confirm the +arrangements, he met the man with the fair moustache coming out of the shop. He +knew by now that he was called Miller. He was a naturalized German, who had +anglicised his name, and he had lived many years in England. Philip had heard +him speak, and, though his English was fluent and natural, it had not quite the +intonation of the native. Philip knew that he was flirting with Mildred, and he +was horribly jealous of him; but he took comfort in the coldness of her +temperament, which otherwise distressed him; and, thinking her incapable of +passion, he looked upon his rival as no better off than himself. But his heart +sank now, for his first thought was that Miller’s sudden appearance might +interfere with the jaunt which he had so looked forward to. He entered, sick +with apprehension. The waitress came up to him, took his order for tea, and +presently brought it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry,” she said, with an expression on her face +of real distress. “I shan’t be able to come tonight after +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t look so stern about it,” she laughed. +“It’s not my fault. My aunt was taken ill last night, and +it’s the girl’s night out so I must go and sit with her. She +can’t be left alone, can she?” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you home instead.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ve got the tickets. It would be a pity to waste +them.” +</p> + +<p> +He took them out of his pocket and deliberately tore them up. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing that for?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t suppose I want to go and see a rotten musical comedy by +myself, do you? I only took seats there for your sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t see me home if that’s what you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve made other arrangements.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean by that. You’re just as selfish +as all the rest of them. You only think of yourself. It’s not my fault if +my aunt’s queer.” +</p> + +<p> +She quickly wrote out his bill and left him. Philip knew very little about +women, or he would have been aware that one should accept their most +transparent lies. He made up his mind that he would watch the shop and see for +certain whether Mildred went out with the German. He had an unhappy passion for +certainty. At seven he stationed himself on the opposite pavement. He looked +about for Miller, but did not see him. In ten minutes she came out, she had on +the cloak and shawl which she had worn when he took her to the Shaftesbury +Theatre. It was obvious that she was not going home. She saw him before he had +time to move away, started a little, and then came straight up to him. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing here?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Taking the air,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re spying on me, you dirty little cad. I thought you was a +gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you think a gentleman would be likely to take any interest in +you?” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +There was a devil within him which forced him to make matters worse. He wanted +to hurt her as much as she was hurting him. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I can change my mind if I like. I’m not obliged to come +out with you. I tell you I’m going home, and I won’t be followed or +spied upon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen Miller today?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s no business of yours. In point of fact I haven’t, so +you’re wrong again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw him this afternoon. He’d just come out of the shop when I +went in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what if he did? I can go out with him if I want to, can’t I? +I don’t know what you’ve got to say to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s keeping you waiting, isn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’d rather wait for him than have you wait for me. Put that +in your pipe and smoke it. And now p’raps you’ll go off home and +mind your own business in future.” +</p> + +<p> +His mood changed suddenly from anger to despair, and his voice trembled when he +spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, don’t be beastly with me, Mildred. You know I’m +awfully fond of you. I think I love you with all my heart. Won’t you +change your mind? I was looking forward to this evening so awfully. You see, he +hasn’t come, and he can’t care twopence about you really. +Won’t you dine with me? I’ll get some more tickets, and we’ll +go anywhere you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I won’t. It’s no good you talking. I’ve +made up my mind, and when I make up my mind I keep to it.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her for a moment. His heart was torn with anguish. People were +hurrying past them on the pavement, and cabs and omnibuses rolled by noisily. +He saw that Mildred’s eyes were wandering. She was afraid of missing +Miller in the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t go on like this,” groaned Philip. “It’s +too degrading. If I go now I go for good. Unless you’ll come with me +tonight you’ll never see me again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to think that’ll be an awful thing for me. All I say is, +good riddance to bad rubbish.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded and limped away slowly, for he hoped with all his heart that she +would call him back. At the next lamp-post he stopped and looked over his +shoulder. He thought she might beckon to him—he was willing to forget +everything, he was ready for any humiliation—but she had turned away, and +apparently had ceased to trouble about him. He realised that she was glad to be +quit of him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LIX</h2> + +<p> +Philip passed the evening wretchedly. He had told his landlady that he would +not be in, so there was nothing for him to eat, and he had to go to +Gatti’s for dinner. Afterwards he went back to his rooms, but Griffiths +on the floor above him was having a party, and the noisy merriment made his own +misery more hard to bear. He went to a music-hall, but it was Saturday night +and there was standing-room only: after half an hour of boredom his legs grew +tired and he went home. He tried to read, but he could not fix his attention; +and yet it was necessary that he should work hard. His examination in biology +was in little more than a fortnight, and, though it was easy, he had neglected +his lectures of late and was conscious that he knew nothing. It was only a +viva, however, and he felt sure that in a fortnight he could find out enough +about the subject to scrape through. He had confidence in his intelligence. He +threw aside his book and gave himself up to thinking deliberately of the matter +which was in his mind all the time. +</p> + +<p> +He reproached himself bitterly for his behaviour that evening. Why had he given +her the alternative that she must dine with him or else never see him again? Of +course she refused. He should have allowed for her pride. He had burnt his +ships behind him. It would not be so hard to bear if he thought that she was +suffering now, but he knew her too well: she was perfectly indifferent to him. +If he hadn’t been a fool he would have pretended to believe her story; he +ought to have had the strength to conceal his disappointment and the +self-control to master his temper. He could not tell why he loved her. He had +read of the idealisation that takes place in love, but he saw her exactly as +she was. She was not amusing or clever, her mind was common; she had a vulgar +shrewdness which revolted him, she had no gentleness nor softness. As she would +have put it herself, she was on the make. What aroused her admiration was a +clever trick played on an unsuspecting person; to ‘do’ somebody +always gave her satisfaction. Philip laughed savagely as he thought of her +gentility and the refinement with which she ate her food; she could not bear a +coarse word, so far as her limited vocabulary reached she had a passion for +euphemisms, and she scented indecency everywhere; she never spoke of trousers +but referred to them as nether garments; she thought it slightly indelicate to +blow her nose and did it in a deprecating way. She was dreadfully anaemic and +suffered from the dyspepsia which accompanies that ailing. Philip was repelled +by her flat breast and narrow hips, and he hated the vulgar way in which she +did her hair. He loathed and despised himself for loving her. +</p> + +<p> +The fact remained that he was helpless. He felt just as he had felt sometimes +in the hands of a bigger boy at school. He had struggled against the superior +strength till his own strength was gone, and he was rendered quite +powerless—he remembered the peculiar languor he had felt in his limbs, +almost as though he were paralysed—so that he could not help himself at +all. He might have been dead. He felt just that same weakness now. He loved the +woman so that he knew he had never loved before. He did not mind her faults of +person or of character, he thought he loved them too: at all events they meant +nothing to him. It did not seem himself that was concerned; he felt that he had +been seized by some strange force that moved him against his will, contrary to +his interests; and because he had a passion for freedom he hated the chains +which bound him. He laughed at himself when he thought how often he had longed +to experience the overwhelming passion. He cursed himself because he had given +way to it. He thought of the beginnings; nothing of all this would have +happened if he had not gone into the shop with Dunsford. The whole thing was +his own fault. Except for his ridiculous vanity he would never have troubled +himself with the ill-mannered slut. +</p> + +<p> +At all events the occurrences of that evening had finished the whole affair. +Unless he was lost to all sense of shame he could not go back. He wanted +passionately to get rid of the love that obsessed him; it was degrading and +hateful. He must prevent himself from thinking of her. In a little while the +anguish he suffered must grow less. His mind went back to the past. He wondered +whether Emily Wilkinson and Fanny Price had endured on his account anything +like the torment that he suffered now. He felt a pang of remorse. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know then what it was like,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +He slept very badly. The next day was Sunday, and he worked at his biology. He +sat with the book in front of him, forming the words with his lips in order to +fix his attention, but he could remember nothing. He found his thoughts going +back to Mildred every minute, and he repeated to himself the exact words of the +quarrel they had had. He had to force himself back to his book. He went out for +a walk. The streets on the South side of the river were dingy enough on +week-days, but there was an energy, a coming and going, which gave them a +sordid vivacity; but on Sundays, with no shops open, no carts in the roadway, +silent and depressed, they were indescribably dreary. Philip thought that day +would never end. But he was so tired that he slept heavily, and when Monday +came he entered upon life with determination. Christmas was approaching, and a +good many of the students had gone into the country for the short holiday +between the two parts of the winter session; but Philip had refused his +uncle’s invitation to go down to Blackstable. He had given the +approaching examination as his excuse, but in point of fact he had been +unwilling to leave London and Mildred. He had neglected his work so much that +now he had only a fortnight to learn what the curriculum allowed three months +for. He set to work seriously. He found it easier each day not to think of +Mildred. He congratulated himself on his force of character. The pain he +suffered was no longer anguish, but a sort of soreness, like what one might be +expected to feel if one had been thrown off a horse and, though no bones were +broken, were bruised all over and shaken. Philip found that he was able to +observe with curiosity the condition he had been in during the last few weeks. +He analysed his feelings with interest. He was a little amused at himself. One +thing that struck him was how little under those circumstances it mattered what +one thought; the system of personal philosophy, which had given him great +satisfaction to devise, had not served him. He was puzzled by this. +</p> + +<p> +But sometimes in the street he would see a girl who looked so like Mildred that +his heart seemed to stop beating. Then he could not help himself, he hurried on +to catch her up, eager and anxious, only to find that it was a total stranger. +Men came back from the country, and he went with Dunsford to have tea at an A. +B. C. shop. The well-known uniform made him so miserable that he could not +speak. The thought came to him that perhaps she had been transferred to another +establishment of the firm for which she worked, and he might suddenly find +himself face to face with her. The idea filled him with panic, so that he +feared Dunsford would see that something was the matter with him: he could not +think of anything to say; he pretended to listen to what Dunsford was talking +about; the conversation maddened him; and it was all he could do to prevent +himself from crying out to Dunsford for Heaven’s sake to hold his tongue. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the day of his examination. Philip, when his turn arrived, went +forward to the examiner’s table with the utmost confidence. He answered +three or four questions. Then they showed him various specimens; he had been to +very few lectures and, as soon as he was asked about things which he could not +learn from books, he was floored. He did what he could to hide his ignorance, +the examiner did not insist, and soon his ten minutes were over. He felt +certain he had passed; but next day, when he went up to the examination +buildings to see the result posted on the door, he was astounded not to find +his number among those who had satisfied the examiners. In amazement he read +the list three times. Dunsford was with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m awfully sorry you’re ploughed,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He had just inquired Philip’s number. Philip turned and saw by his +radiant face that Dunsford had passed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it doesn’t matter a bit,” said Philip. “I’m +jolly glad you’re all right. I shall go up again in July.” +</p> + +<p> +He was very anxious to pretend he did not mind, and on their way back along The +Embankment insisted on talking of indifferent things. Dunsford good-naturedly +wanted to discuss the causes of Philip’s failure, but Philip was +obstinately casual. He was horribly mortified; and the fact that Dunsford, whom +he looked upon as a very pleasant but quite stupid fellow, had passed made his +own rebuff harder to bear. He had always been proud of his intelligence, and +now he asked himself desperately whether he was not mistaken in the opinion he +held of himself. In the three months of the winter session the students who had +joined in October had already shaken down into groups, and it was clear which +were brilliant, which were clever or industrious, and which were +‘rotters.’ Philip was conscious that his failure was a surprise to +no one but himself. It was tea-time, and he knew that a lot of men would be +having tea in the basement of the Medical School: those who had passed the +examination would be exultant, those who disliked him would look at him with +satisfaction, and the poor devils who had failed would sympathise with him in +order to receive sympathy. His instinct was not to go near the hospital for a +week, when the affair would be no more thought of, but, because he hated so +much to go just then, he went: he wanted to inflict suffering upon himself. He +forgot for the moment his maxim of life to follow his inclinations with due +regard for the policeman round the corner; or, if he acted in accordance with +it, there must have been some strange morbidity in his nature which made him +take a grim pleasure in self-torture. +</p> + +<p> +But later on, when he had endured the ordeal to which he forced himself, going +out into the night after the noisy conversation in the smoking-room, he was +seized with a feeling of utter loneliness. He seemed to himself absurd and +futile. He had an urgent need of consolation, and the temptation to see Mildred +was irresistible. He thought bitterly that there was small chance of +consolation from her; but he wanted to see her even if he did not speak to her; +after all, she was a waitress and would be obliged to serve him. She was the +only person in the world he cared for. There was no use in hiding that fact +from himself. Of course it would be humiliating to go back to the shop as +though nothing had happened, but he had not much self-respect left. Though he +would not confess it to himself, he had hoped each day that she would write to +him; she knew that a letter addressed to the hospital would find him; but she +had not written: it was evident that she cared nothing if she saw him again or +not. And he kept on repeating to himself: +</p> + +<p> +“I must see her. I must see her.” +</p> + +<p> +The desire was so great that he could not give the time necessary to walk, but +jumped in a cab. He was too thrifty to use one when it could possibly be +avoided. He stood outside the shop for a minute or two. The thought came to him +that perhaps she had left, and in terror he walked in quickly. He saw her at +once. He sat down and she came up to him. +</p> + +<p> +“A cup of tea and a muffin, please,” he ordered. +</p> + +<p> +He could hardly speak. He was afraid for a moment that he was going to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“I almost thought you was dead,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She was smiling. Smiling! She seemed to have forgotten completely that last +scene which Philip had repeated to himself a hundred times. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought if you’d wanted to see me you’d write,” he +answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got too much to do to think about writing letters.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed impossible for her to say a gracious thing. Philip cursed the fate +which chained him to such a woman. She went away to fetch his tea. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like me to sit down for a minute or two?” she said, when +she brought it. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you been all this time?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you’d gone away for the holidays. Why haven’t you +been in then?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at her with haggard, passionate eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you remember that I said I’d never see you +again?” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing now then?” +</p> + +<p> +She seemed anxious to make him drink up the cup of his humiliation; but he knew +her well enough to know that she spoke at random; she hurt him frightfully, and +never even tried to. He did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a nasty trick you played on me, spying on me like that. I always +thought you was a gentleman in every sense of the word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be beastly to me, Mildred. I can’t bear it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a funny feller. I can’t make you out.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very simple. I’m such a blasted fool as to love you +with all my heart and soul, and I know that you don’t care twopence for +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you had been a gentleman I think you’d have come next day and +begged my pardon.” +</p> + +<p> +She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it +with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty +certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover +her pale, thin face with kisses. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could only make you understand how frightfully I’m in love +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t begged my pardon yet.” +</p> + +<p> +He grew very white. She felt that she had done nothing wrong on that occasion. +She wanted him now to humble himself. He was very proud. For one instant he +felt inclined to tell her to go to hell, but he dared not. His passion made him +abject. He was willing to submit to anything rather than not see her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry, Mildred. I beg your pardon.” +</p> + +<p> +He had to force the words out. It was a horrible effort. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’ve said that I don’t mind telling you that I wish I +had come out with you that evening. I thought Miller was a gentleman, but +I’ve discovered my mistake now. I soon sent him about his +business.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip gave a little gasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Mildred, won’t you come out with me tonight? Let’s go and +dine somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I can’t. My aunt’ll be expecting me home.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll send her a wire. You can say you’ve been detained in +the shop; she won’t know any better. Oh, do come, for God’s sake. I +haven’t seen you for so long, and I want to talk to you.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked down at her clothes. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind about that. We’ll go somewhere where it doesn’t +matter how you’re dressed. And we’ll go to a music-hall afterwards. +Please say yes. It would give me so much pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated a moment; he looked at her with pitifully appealing eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t mind if I do. I haven’t been out anywhere +since I don’t know how long.” +</p> + +<p> +It was with the greatest difficulty he could prevent himself from seizing her +hand there and then to cover it with kisses. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LX</h2> + +<p> +They dined in Soho. Philip was tremulous with joy. It was not one of the more +crowded of those cheap restaurants where the respectable and needy dine in the +belief that it is bohemian and the assurance that it is economical. It was a +humble establishment, kept by a good man from Rouen and his wife, that Philip +had discovered by accident. He had been attracted by the Gallic look of the +window, in which was generally an uncooked steak on one plate and on each side +two dishes of raw vegetables. There was one seedy French waiter, who was +attempting to learn English in a house where he never heard anything but +French; and the customers were a few ladies of easy virtue, a menage or two, +who had their own napkins reserved for them, and a few queer men who came in +for hurried, scanty meals. +</p> + +<p> +Here Mildred and Philip were able to get a table to themselves. Philip sent the +waiter for a bottle of Burgundy from the neighbouring tavern, and they had a +potage aux herbes, a steak from the window aux pommes, and an omelette au +kirsch. There was really an air of romance in the meal and in the place. +Mildred, at first a little reserved in her appreciation—“I never +quite trust these foreign places, you never know what there is in these messed +up dishes”—was insensibly moved by it. +</p> + +<p> +“I like this place, Philip,” she said. “You feel you can put +your elbows on the table, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +A tall fellow came in, with a mane of gray hair and a ragged thin beard. He +wore a dilapidated cloak and a wide-awake hat. He nodded to Philip, who had met +him there before. +</p> + +<p> +“He looks like an anarchist,” said Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +“He is, one of the most dangerous in Europe. He’s been in every +prison on the Continent and has assassinated more persons than any gentleman +unhung. He always goes about with a bomb in his pocket, and of course it makes +conversation a little difficult because if you don’t agree with him he +lays it on the table in a marked manner.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at the man with horror and surprise, and then glanced suspiciously +at Philip. She saw that his eyes were laughing. She frowned a little. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re getting at me.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a little shout of joy. He was so happy. But Mildred didn’t like +being laughed at. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see anything funny in telling lies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be cross.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand, which was lying on the table, and pressed it gently. +</p> + +<p> +“You are lovely, and I could kiss the ground you walk on,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The greenish pallor of her skin intoxicated him, and her thin white lips had an +extraordinary fascination. Her anaemia made her rather short of breath, and she +held her mouth slightly open. It seemed to add somehow to the attractiveness of +her face. +</p> + +<p> +“You do like me a bit, don’t you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I didn’t I suppose I shouldn’t be here, should I? +You’re a gentleman in every sense of the word, I will say that for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +They had finished their dinner and were drinking coffee. Philip, throwing +economy to the winds, smoked a three-penny cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t imagine what a pleasure it is to me just to sit opposite +and look at you. I’ve yearned for you. I was sick for a sight of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mildred smiled a little and faintly flushed. She was not then suffering from +the dyspepsia which generally attacked her immediately after a meal. She felt +more kindly disposed to Philip than ever before, and the unaccustomed +tenderness in her eyes filled him with joy. He knew instinctively that it was +madness to give himself into her hands; his only chance was to treat her +casually and never allow her to see the untamed passions that seethed in his +breast; she would only take advantage of his weakness; but he could not be +prudent now: he told her all the agony he had endured during the separation +from her; he told her of his struggles with himself, how he had tried to get +over his passion, thought he had succeeded, and how he found out that it was as +strong as ever. He knew that he had never really wanted to get over it. He +loved her so much that he did not mind suffering. He bared his heart to her. He +showed her proudly all his weakness. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing would have pleased him more than to sit on in the cosy, shabby +restaurant, but he knew that Mildred wanted entertainment. She was restless +and, wherever she was, wanted after a while to go somewhere else. He dared not +bore her. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, how about going to a music-hall?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He thought rapidly that if she cared for him at all she would say she preferred +to stay there. +</p> + +<p> +“I was just thinking we ought to be going if we are going,” she +answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on then.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip waited impatiently for the end of the performance. He had made up his +mind exactly what to do, and when they got into the cab he passed his arm, as +though almost by accident, round her waist. But he drew it back quickly with a +little cry. He had pricked himself. She laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“There, that comes of putting your arm where it’s got no business +to be,” she said. “I always know when men try and put their arm +round my waist. That pin always catches them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be more careful.” +</p> + +<p> +He put his arm round again. She made no objection. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so comfortable,” he sighed blissfully. +</p> + +<p> +“So long as you’re happy,” she retorted. +</p> + +<p> +They drove down St. James’ Street into the Park, and Philip quickly +kissed her. He was strangely afraid of her, and it required all his courage. +She turned her lips to him without speaking. She neither seemed to mind nor to +like it. +</p> + +<p> +“If you only knew how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he +murmured. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to kiss her again, but she turned her head away. +</p> + +<p> +“Once is enough,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +On the chance of kissing her a second time he travelled down to Herne Hill with +her, and at the end of the road in which she lived he asked her: +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you give me another kiss?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him indifferently and then glanced up the road to see that no one +was in sight. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He seized her in his arms and kissed her passionately, but she pushed him away. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind my hat, silly. You are clumsy,” she said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXI</h2> + +<p> +He saw her then every day. He began going to lunch at the shop, but Mildred +stopped him: she said it made the girls talk; so he had to content himself with +tea; but he always waited about to walk with her to the station; and once or +twice a week they dined together. He gave her little presents, a gold bangle, +gloves, handkerchiefs, and the like. He was spending more than he could afford, +but he could not help it: it was only when he gave her anything that she showed +any affection. She knew the price of everything, and her gratitude was in exact +proportion with the value of his gift. He did not care. He was too happy when +she volunteered to kiss him to mind by what means he got her demonstrativeness. +He discovered that she found Sundays at home tedious, so he went down to Herne +Hill in the morning, met her at the end of the road, and went to church with +her. +</p> + +<p> +“I always like to go to church once,” she said. “It looks +well, doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Then she went back to dinner, he got a scrappy meal at a hotel, and in the +afternoon they took a walk in Brockwell Park. They had nothing much to say to +one another, and Philip, desperately afraid she was bored (she was very easily +bored), racked his brain for topics of conversation. He realised that these +walks amused neither of them, but he could not bear to leave her, and did all +he could to lengthen them till she became tired and out of temper. He knew that +she did not care for him, and he tried to force a love which his reason told +him was not in her nature: she was cold. He had no claim on her, but he could +not help being exacting. Now that they were more intimate he found it less easy +to control his temper; he was often irritable and could not help saying bitter +things. Often they quarrelled, and she would not speak to him for a while; but +this always reduced him to subjection, and he crawled before her. He was angry +with himself for showing so little dignity. He grew furiously jealous if he saw +her speaking to any other man in the shop, and when he was jealous he seemed to +be beside himself. He would deliberately insult her, leave the shop and spend +afterwards a sleepless night tossing on his bed, by turns angry and remorseful. +Next day he would go to the shop and appeal for forgiveness. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be angry with me,” he said. “I’m so +awfully fond of you that I can’t help myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“One of these days you’ll go too far,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +He was anxious to come to her home in order that the greater intimacy should +give him an advantage over the stray acquaintances she made during her +working-hours; but she would not let him. +</p> + +<p> +“My aunt would think it so funny,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He suspected that her refusal was due only to a disinclination to let him see +her aunt. Mildred had represented her as the widow of a professional man (that +was her formula of distinction), and was uneasily conscious that the good woman +could hardly be called distinguished. Philip imagined that she was in point of +fact the widow of a small tradesman. He knew that Mildred was a snob. But he +found no means by which he could indicate to her that he did not mind how +common the aunt was. +</p> + +<p> +Their worst quarrel took place one evening at dinner when she told him that a +man had asked her to go to a play with him. Philip turned pale, and his face +grew hard and stern. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not going?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t I? He’s a very nice gentlemanly fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take you anywhere you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that isn’t the same thing. I can’t always go about with +you. Besides he’s asked me to fix my own day, and I’ll just go one +evening when I’m not going out with you. It won’t make any +difference to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you had any sense of decency, if you had any gratitude, you +wouldn’t dream of going.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean by gratitude. If you’re referring +to the things you’ve given me you can have them back. I don’t want +them.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice had the shrewish tone it sometimes got. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not very lively, always going about with you. It’s +always do you love me, do you love me, till I just get about sick of it.” +</p> + +<p> +He knew it was madness to go on asking her that, but he could not help himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I like you all right,” she would answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all? I love you with all my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not that sort, I’m not one to say much.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you knew how happy just one word would make me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what I always say is, people must take me as they find me, and if +they don’t like it they can lump it.” +</p> + +<p> +But sometimes she expressed herself more plainly still, and, when he asked the +question, answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t go on at that again.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he became sulky and silent. He hated her. +</p> + +<p> +And now he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, if you feel like that about it I wonder you condescend to come +out with me at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not my seeking, you can be very sure of that, you just force +me to.” +</p> + +<p> +His pride was bitterly hurt, and he answered madly. +</p> + +<p> +“You think I’m just good enough to stand you dinners and theatres +when there’s no one else to do it, and when someone else turns up I can +go to hell. Thank you, I’m about sick of being made a convenience.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to be talked to like that by anyone. I’ll just +show you how much I want your dirty dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +She got up, put on her jacket, and walked quickly out of the restaurant. Philip +sat on. He determined he would not move, but ten minutes afterwards he jumped +in a cab and followed her. He guessed that she would take a ’bus to +Victoria, so that they would arrive about the same time. He saw her on the +platform, escaped her notice, and went down to Herne Hill in the same train. He +did not want to speak to her till she was on the way home and could not escape +him. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she had turned out of the main street, brightly lit and noisy with +traffic, he caught her up. +</p> + +<p> +“Mildred,” he called. +</p> + +<p> +She walked on and would neither look at him nor answer. He repeated her name. +Then she stopped and faced him. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you want? I saw you hanging about Victoria. Why don’t +you leave me alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry. Won’t you make it up?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m sick of your temper and your jealousy. I don’t care +for you, I never have cared for you, and I never shall care for you. I +don’t want to have anything more to do with you.” +</p> + +<p> +She walked on quickly, and he had to hurry to keep up with her. +</p> + +<p> +“You never make allowances for me,” he said. “It’s all +very well to be jolly and amiable when you’re indifferent to anyone. +It’s very hard when you’re as much in love as I am. Have mercy on +me. I don’t mind that you don’t care for me. After all you +can’t help it. I only want you to let me love you.” +</p> + +<p> +She walked on, refusing to speak, and Philip saw with agony that they had only +a few hundred yards to go before they reached her house. He abased himself. He +poured out an incoherent story of love and penitence. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll only forgive me this time I promise you you’ll +never have to complain of me in future. You can go out with whoever you choose. +I’ll be only too glad if you’ll come with me when you’ve got +nothing better to do.” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped again, for they had reached the corner at which he always left her. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you can take yourself off. I won’t have you coming up to the +door.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t go till you say you’ll forgive me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sick and tired of the whole thing.” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated a moment, for he had an instinct that he could say something that +would move her. It made him feel almost sick to utter the words. +</p> + +<p> +“It is cruel, I have so much to put up with. You don’t know what it +is to be a cripple. Of course you don’t like me. I can’t expect you +to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, I didn’t mean that,” she answered quickly, with a +sudden break of pity in her voice. “You know it’s not true.” +</p> + +<p> +He was beginning to act now, and his voice was husky and low. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ve felt it,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She took his hand and looked at him, and her own eyes were filled with tears. +</p> + +<p> +“I promise you it never made any difference to me. I never thought about +it after the first day or two.” +</p> + +<p> +He kept a gloomy, tragic silence. He wanted her to think he was overcome with +emotion. +</p> + +<p> +“You know I like you awfully, Philip. Only you are so trying sometimes. +Let’s make it up.” +</p> + +<p> +She put up her lips to his, and with a sigh of relief he kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +“Now are you happy again?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Madly.” +</p> + +<p> +She bade him good-night and hurried down the road. Next day he took her in a +little watch with a brooch to pin on her dress. She had been hankering for it. +</p> + +<p> +But three or four days later, when she brought him his tea, Mildred said to +him: +</p> + +<p> +“You remember what you promised the other night? You mean to keep that, +don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +He knew exactly what she meant and was prepared for her next words. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I’m going out with that gentleman I told you about +tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mind, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +He had himself now under excellent control. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like it,” he smiled, “but I’m not going +to make myself more disagreeable than I can help.” +</p> + +<p> +She was excited over the outing and talked about it willingly. Philip wondered +whether she did so in order to pain him or merely because she was callous. He +was in the habit of condoning her cruelty by the thought of her stupidity. She +had not the brains to see when she was wounding him. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not much fun to be in love with a girl who has no imagination +and no sense of humour,” he thought, as he listened. +</p> + +<p> +But the want of these things excused her. He felt that if he had not realised +this he could never forgive her for the pain she caused him. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got seats for the Tivoli,” she said. “He gave me +my choice and I chose that. And we’re going to dine at the Cafe Royal. He +says it’s the most expensive place in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a gentleman in every sense of the word,” thought +Philip, but he clenched his teeth to prevent himself from uttering a syllable. +</p> + +<p> +Philip went to the Tivoli and saw Mildred with her companion, a smooth-faced +young man with sleek hair and the spruce look of a commercial traveller, +sitting in the second row of the stalls. Mildred wore a black picture hat with +ostrich feathers in it, which became her well. She was listening to her host +with that quiet smile which Philip knew; she had no vivacity of expression, and +it required broad farce to excite her laughter; but Philip could see that she +was interested and amused. He thought to himself bitterly that her companion, +flashy and jovial, exactly suited her. Her sluggish temperament made her +appreciate noisy people. Philip had a passion for discussion, but no talent for +small-talk. He admired the easy drollery of which some of his friends were +masters, Lawson for instance, and his sense of inferiority made him shy and +awkward. The things which interested him bored Mildred. She expected men to +talk about football and racing, and he knew nothing of either. He did not know +the catchwords which only need be said to excite a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Printed matter had always been a fetish to Philip, and now, in order to make +himself more interesting, he read industriously The Sporting Times. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXII</h2> + +<p> +Philip did not surrender himself willingly to the passion that consumed him. He +knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one +day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like +a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life’s +blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in +nothing else. He had been used to delight in the grace of St. James’ +Park, and often he sat and looked at the branches of a tree silhouetted against +the sky, it was like a Japanese print; and he found a continual magic in the +beautiful Thames with its barges and its wharfs; the changing sky of London had +filled his soul with pleasant fancies. But now beauty meant nothing to him. He +was bored and restless when he was not with Mildred. Sometimes he thought he +would console his sorrow by looking at pictures, but he walked through the +National Gallery like a sight-seer; and no picture called up in him a thrill of +emotion. He wondered if he could ever care again for all the things he had +loved. He had been devoted to reading, but now books were meaningless; and he +spent his spare hours in the smoking-room of the hospital club, turning over +innumerable periodicals. This love was a torment, and he resented bitterly the +subjugation in which it held him; he was a prisoner and he longed for freedom. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes he awoke in the morning and felt nothing; his soul leaped, for he +thought he was free; he loved no longer; but in a little while, as he grew wide +awake, the pain settled in his heart, and he knew that he was not cured yet. +Though he yearned for Mildred so madly he despised her. He thought to himself +that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to +love and to contemn. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, burrowing as was his habit into the state of his feelings, discussing +with himself continually his condition, came to the conclusion that he could +only cure himself of his degrading passion by making Mildred his mistress. It +was sexual hunger that he suffered from, and if he could satisfy this he might +free himself from the intolerable chains that bound him. He knew that Mildred +did not care for him at all in that way. When he kissed her passionately she +withdrew herself from him with instinctive distaste. She had no sensuality. +Sometimes he had tried to make her jealous by talking of adventures in Paris, +but they did not interest her; once or twice he had sat at other tables in the +tea-shop and affected to flirt with the waitress who attended them, but she was +entirely indifferent. He could see that it was no pretence on her part. +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t mind my not sitting at one of your tables this +afternoon?” he asked once, when he was walking to the station with her. +“Yours seemed to be all full.” +</p> + +<p> +This was not a fact, but she did not contradict him. Even if his desertion +meant nothing to her he would have been grateful if she had pretended it did. A +reproach would have been balm to his soul. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it’s silly of you to sit at the same table every day. You +ought to give the other girls a turn now and again.” +</p> + +<p> +But the more he thought of it the more he was convinced that complete surrender +on her part was his only way to freedom. He was like a knight of old, +metamorphosed by magic spells, who sought the potions which should restore him +to his fair and proper form. Philip had only one hope. Mildred greatly desired +to go to Paris. To her, as to most English people, it was the centre of gaiety +and fashion: she had heard of the Magasin du Louvre, where you could get the +very latest thing for about half the price you had to pay in London; a friend +of hers had passed her honeymoon in Paris and had spent all day at the Louvre; +and she and her husband, my dear, they never went to bed till six in the +morning all the time they were there; the Moulin Rouge and I don’t know +what all. Philip did not care that if she yielded to his desires it would only +be the unwilling price she paid for the gratification of her wish. He did not +care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even had a mad, +melodramatic idea to drug her. He had plied her with liquor in the hope of +exciting her, but she had no taste for wine; and though she liked him to order +champagne because it looked well, she never drank more than half a glass. She +liked to leave untouched a large glass filled to the brim. +</p> + +<p> +“It shows the waiters who you are,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip chose an opportunity when she seemed more than usually friendly. He had +an examination in anatomy at the end of March. Easter, which came a week later, +would give Mildred three whole days holiday. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, why don’t you come over to Paris then?” he suggested. +“We’d have such a ripping time.” +</p> + +<p> +“How could you? It would cost no end of money.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had thought of that. It would cost at least five-and-twenty pounds. It +was a large sum to him. He was willing to spend his last penny on her. +</p> + +<p> +“What does that matter? Say you’ll come, darling.” +</p> + +<p> +“What next, I should like to know. I can’t see myself going away +with a man that I wasn’t married to. You oughtn’t to suggest such a +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does it matter?” +</p> + +<p> +He enlarged on the glories of the Rue de la Paix and the garish splendour of +the Folies Bergeres. He described the Louvre and the Bon Marche. He told her +about the Cabaret du Neant, the Abbaye, and the various haunts to which +foreigners go. He painted in glowing colours the side of Paris which he +despised. He pressed her to come with him. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, you say you love me, but if you really loved me you’d +want to marry me. You’ve never asked me to marry you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I can’t afford it. After all, I’m in my first year, +I shan’t earn a penny for six years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m not blaming you. I wouldn’t marry you if you went +down on your bended knees to me.” +</p> + +<p> +He had thought of marriage more than once, but it was a step from which he +shrank. In Paris he had come by the opinion that marriage was a ridiculous +institution of the philistines. He knew also that a permanent tie would ruin +him. He had middle-class instincts, and it seemed a dreadful thing to him to +marry a waitress. A common wife would prevent him from getting a decent +practice. Besides, he had only just enough money to last him till he was +qualified; he could not keep a wife even if they arranged not to have children. +He thought of Cronshaw bound to a vulgar slattern, and he shuddered with +dismay. He foresaw what Mildred, with her genteel ideas and her mean mind, +would become: it was impossible for him to marry her. But he decided only with +his reason; he felt that he must have her whatever happened; and if he could +not get her without marrying her he would do that; the future could look after +itself. It might end in disaster; he did not care. When he got hold of an idea +it obsessed him, he could think of nothing else, and he had a more than common +power to persuade himself of the reasonableness of what he wished to do. He +found himself overthrowing all the sensible arguments which had occurred to him +against marriage. Each day he found that he was more passionately devoted to +her; and his unsatisfied love became angry and resentful. +</p> + +<p> +“By George, if I marry her I’ll make her pay for all the suffering +I’ve endured,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +At last he could bear the agony no longer. After dinner one evening in the +little restaurant in Soho, to which now they often went, he spoke to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, did you mean it the other day that you wouldn’t marry me if +I asked you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I can’t live without you. I want you with me always. +I’ve tried to get over it and I can’t. I never shall now. I want +you to marry me.” +</p> + +<p> +She had read too many novelettes not to know how to take such an offer. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I’m very grateful to you, Philip. I’m very +much flattered at your proposal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t talk rot. You will marry me, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you think we should be happy?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. But what does that matter?” +</p> + +<p> +The words were wrung out of him almost against his will. They surprised her. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are a funny chap. Why d’you want to marry me then? The +other day you said you couldn’t afford it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’ve got about fourteen hundred pounds left. Two can live +just as cheaply as one. That’ll keep us till I’m qualified and have +got through with my hospital appointments, and then I can get an +assistantship.” +</p> + +<p> +“It means you wouldn’t be able to earn anything for six years. We +should have about four pounds a week to live on till then, shouldn’t +we?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much more than three. There are all my fees to pay.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what would you get as an assistant?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three pounds a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say you have to work all that time and spend a small +fortune just to earn three pounds a week at the end of it? I don’t see +that I should be any better off than I am now.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say you won’t marry me?” he asked +hoarsely. “Does my great love mean nothing to you at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“One has to think of oneself in those things, don’t one? I +shouldn’t mind marrying, but I don’t want to marry if I’m +going to be no better off than what I am now. I don’t see the use of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you cared for me you wouldn’t think of all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“P’raps not.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent. He drank a glass of wine in order to get rid of the choking in +his throat. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at that girl who’s just going out,” said Mildred. +“She got them furs at the Bon Marche at Brixton. I saw them in the window +last time I went down there.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you laughing at?” she asked. “It’s true. And +I said to my aunt at the time, I wouldn’t buy anything that had been in +the window like that, for everyone to know how much you paid for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t understand you. You make me frightfully unhappy, and in +the next breath you talk rot that has nothing to do with what we’re +speaking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are nasty to me,” she answered, aggrieved. “I +can’t help noticing those furs, because I said to my aunt…” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care a damn what you said to your aunt,” he +interrupted impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t use bad language when you speak to me Philip. +You know I don’t like it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled a little, but his eyes were wild. He was silent for a while. He +looked at her sullenly. He hated, despised, and loved her. +</p> + +<p> +“If I had an ounce of sense I’d never see you again,” he said +at last. “If you only knew how heartily I despise myself for loving +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not a very nice thing to say to me,” she replied +sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t,” he laughed. “Let’s go to the +Pavilion.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what’s so funny in you, you start laughing just when +one doesn’t expect you to. And if I make you that unhappy why d’you +want to take me to the Pavilion? I’m quite ready to go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Merely because I’m less unhappy with you than away from +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to know what you really think of me.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed outright. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, if you did you’d never speak to me again.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXIII</h2> + +<p> +Philip did not pass the examination in anatomy at the end of March. He and +Dunsford had worked at the subject together on Philip’s skeleton, asking +each other questions till both knew by heart every attachment and the meaning +of every nodule and groove on the human bones; but in the examination room +Philip was seized with panic, and failed to give right answers to questions +from a sudden fear that they might be wrong. He knew he was ploughed and did +not even trouble to go up to the building next day to see whether his number +was up. The second failure put him definitely among the incompetent and idle +men of his year. +</p> + +<p> +He did not care much. He had other things to think of. He told himself that +Mildred must have senses like anybody else, it was only a question of awakening +them; he had theories about woman, the rip at heart, and thought that there +must come a time with everyone when she would yield to persistence. It was a +question of watching for the opportunity, keeping his temper, wearing her down +with small attentions, taking advantage of the physical exhaustion which opened +the heart to tenderness, making himself a refuge from the petty vexations of +her work. He talked to her of the relations between his friends in Paris and +the fair ladies they admired. The life he described had a charm, an easy +gaiety, in which was no grossness. Weaving into his own recollections the +adventures of Mimi and Rodolphe, of Musette and the rest of them, he poured +into Mildred’s ears a story of poverty made picturesque by song and +laughter, of lawless love made romantic by beauty and youth. He never attacked +her prejudices directly, but sought to combat them by the suggestion that they +were suburban. He never let himself be disturbed by her inattention, nor +irritated by her indifference. He thought he had bored her. By an effort he +made himself affable and entertaining; he never let himself be angry, he never +asked for anything, he never complained, he never scolded. When she made +engagements and broke them, he met her next day with a smiling face; when she +excused herself, he said it did not matter. He never let her see that she +pained him. He understood that his passionate grief had wearied her, and he +took care to hide every sentiment which could be in the least degree +troublesome. He was heroic. +</p> + +<p> +Though she never mentioned the change, for she did not take any conscious +notice of it, it affected her nevertheless: she became more confidential with +him; she took her little grievances to him, and she always had some grievance +against the manageress of the shop, one of her fellow waitresses, or her aunt; +she was talkative enough now, and though she never said anything that was not +trivial Philip was never tired of listening to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I like you when you don’t want to make love to me,” she told +him once. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s flattering for me,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +She did not realise how her words made his heart sink nor what an effort it +needed for him to answer so lightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mind your kissing me now and then. It doesn’t +hurt me and it gives you pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +Occasionally she went so far as to ask him to take her out to dinner, and the +offer, coming from her, filled him with rapture. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t do it to anyone else,” she said, by way of +apology. “But I know I can with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You couldn’t give me greater pleasure,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +She asked him to give her something to eat one evening towards the end of +April. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he said. “Where would you like to go +afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t let’s go anywhere. Let’s just sit and talk. +You don’t mind, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather not.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought she must be beginning to care for him. Three months before the +thought of an evening spent in conversation would have bored her to death. It +was a fine day, and the spring added to Philip’s high spirits. He was +content with very little now. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, won’t it be ripping when the summer comes along,” he +said, as they drove along on the top of a ’bus to Soho—she had +herself suggested that they should not be so extravagant as to go by cab. +“We shall be able to spend every Sunday on the river. We’ll take +our luncheon in a basket.” +</p> + +<p> +She smiled slightly, and he was encouraged to take her hand. She did not +withdraw it. +</p> + +<p> +“I really think you’re beginning to like me a bit,” he +smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“You ARE silly, you know I like you, or else I shouldn’t be here, +should I?” +</p> + +<p> +They were old customers at the little restaurant in Soho by now, and the +patronne gave them a smile as they came in. The waiter was obsequious. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me order the dinner tonight,” said Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, thinking her more enchanting than ever, gave her the menu, and she +chose her favourite dishes. The range was small, and they had eaten many times +all that the restaurant could provide. Philip was gay. He looked into her eyes, +and he dwelt on every perfection of her pale cheek. When they had finished +Mildred by way of exception took a cigarette. She smoked very seldom. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like to see a lady smoking,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated a moment and then spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Were you surprised, my asking you to take me out and give me a bit of +dinner tonight?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was delighted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got something to say to you, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her quickly, his heart sank, but he had trained himself well. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, fire away,” he said, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not going to be silly about it, are you? The fact is +I’m going to get married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He could think of nothing else to say. He had considered the possibility often +and had imagined to himself what he would do and say. He had suffered agonies +when he thought of the despair he would suffer, he had thought of suicide, of +the mad passion of anger that would seize him; but perhaps he had too +completely anticipated the emotion he would experience, so that now he felt +merely exhausted. He felt as one does in a serious illness when the vitality is +so low that one is indifferent to the issue and wants only to be left alone. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, I’m getting on,” she said. “I’m +twenty-four and it’s time I settled down.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent. He looked at the patronne sitting behind the counter, and his +eye dwelt on a red feather one of the diners wore in her hat. Mildred was +nettled. +</p> + +<p> +“You might congratulate me,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I might, mightn’t I? I can hardly believe it’s true. +I’ve dreamt it so often. It rather tickles me that I should have been so +jolly glad that you asked me to take you out to dinner. Whom are you going to +marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Miller,” she answered, with a slight blush. +</p> + +<p> +“Miller?” cried Philip, astounded. “But you’ve not seen +him for months.” +</p> + +<p> +“He came in to lunch one day last week and asked me then. He’s +earning very good money. He makes seven pounds a week now and he’s got +prospects.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent again. He remembered that she had always liked Miller; he +amused her; there was in his foreign birth an exotic charm which she felt +unconsciously. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it was inevitable,” he said at last. “You were +bound to accept the highest bidder. When are you going to marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“On Saturday next. I have given notice.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt a sudden pang. +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as that?” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re going to be married at a registry office. Emil prefers +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt dreadfully tired. He wanted to get away from her. He thought he +would go straight to bed. He called for the bill. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll put you in a cab and send you down to Victoria. I daresay you +won’t have to wait long for a train.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’d rather not if you don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just as you please,” she answered haughtily. “I +suppose I shall see you at tea-time tomorrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I think we’d better make a full stop now. I don’t see +why I should go on making myself unhappy. I’ve paid the cab.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded to her and forced a smile on his lips, then jumped on a ’bus +and made his way home. He smoked a pipe before he went to bed, but he could +hardly keep his eyes open. He suffered no pain. He fell into a heavy sleep +almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXIV</h2> + +<p> +But about three in the morning Philip awoke and could not sleep again. He began +to think of Mildred. He tried not to, but could not help himself. He repeated +to himself the same thing time after time till his brain reeled. It was +inevitable that she should marry: life was hard for a girl who had to earn her +own living; and if she found someone who could give her a comfortable home she +should not be blamed if she accepted. Philip acknowledged that from her point +of view it would have been madness to marry him: only love could have made such +poverty bearable, and she did not love him. It was no fault of hers; it was a +fact that must be accepted like any other. Philip tried to reason with himself. +He told himself that deep down in his heart was mortified pride; his passion +had begun in wounded vanity, and it was this at bottom which caused now a great +part of his wretchedness. He despised himself as much as he despised her. Then +he made plans for the future, the same plans over and over again, interrupted +by recollections of kisses on her soft pale cheek and by the sound of her voice +with its trailing accent; he had a great deal of work to do, since in the +summer he was taking chemistry as well as the two examinations he had failed +in. He had separated himself from his friends at the hospital, but now he +wanted companionship. There was one happy occurrence: Hayward a fortnight +before had written to say that he was passing through London and had asked him +to dinner; but Philip, unwilling to be bothered, had refused. He was coming +back for the season, and Philip made up his mind to write to him. +</p> + +<p> +He was thankful when eight o’clock struck and he could get up. He was +pale and weary. But when he had bathed, dressed, and had breakfast, he felt +himself joined up again with the world at large; and his pain was a little +easier to bear. He did not feel like going to lectures that morning, but went +instead to the Army and Navy Stores to buy Mildred a wedding-present. After +much wavering he settled on a dressing-bag. It cost twenty pounds, which was +much more than he could afford, but it was showy and vulgar: he knew she would +be aware exactly how much it cost; he got a melancholy satisfaction in choosing +a gift which would give her pleasure and at the same time indicate for himself +the contempt he had for her. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had looked forward with apprehension to the day on which Mildred was to +be married; he was expecting an intolerable anguish; and it was with relief +that he got a letter from Hayward on Saturday morning to say that he was coming +up early on that very day and would fetch Philip to help him to find rooms. +Philip, anxious to be distracted, looked up a time-table and discovered the +only train Hayward was likely to come by; he went to meet him, and the reunion +of the friends was enthusiastic. They left the luggage at the station, and set +off gaily. Hayward characteristically proposed that first of all they should go +for an hour to the National Gallery; he had not seen pictures for some time, +and he stated that it needed a glimpse to set him in tune with life. Philip for +months had had no one with whom he could talk of art and books. Since the Paris +days Hayward had immersed himself in the modern French versifiers, and, such a +plethora of poets is there in France, he had several new geniuses to tell +Philip about. They walked through the gallery pointing out to one another their +favourite pictures; one subject led to another; they talked excitedly. The sun +was shining and the air was warm. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go and sit in the Park,” said Hayward. +“We’ll look for rooms after luncheon.” +</p> + +<p> +The spring was pleasant there. It was a day upon which one felt it good merely +to live. The young green of the trees was exquisite against the sky; and the +sky, pale and blue, was dappled with little white clouds. At the end of the +ornamental water was the gray mass of the Horse Guards. The ordered elegance of +the scene had the charm of an eighteenth-century picture. It reminded you not +of Watteau, whose landscapes are so idyllic that they recall only the woodland +glens seen in dreams, but of the more prosaic Jean-Baptiste Pater. +Philip’s heart was filled with lightness. He realised, what he had only +read before, that art (for there was art in the manner in which he looked upon +nature) might liberate the soul from pain. +</p> + +<p> +They went to an Italian restaurant for luncheon and ordered themselves a +fiaschetto of Chianti. Lingering over the meal they talked on. They reminded +one another of the people they had known at Heidelberg, they spoke of +Philip’s friends in Paris, they talked of books, pictures, morals, life; +and suddenly Philip heard a clock strike three. He remembered that by this time +Mildred was married. He felt a sort of stitch in his heart, and for a minute or +two he could not hear what Hayward was saying. But he filled his glass with +Chianti. He was unaccustomed to alcohol and it had gone to his head. For the +time at all events he was free from care. His quick brain had lain idle for so +many months that he was intoxicated now with conversation. He was thankful to +have someone to talk to who would interest himself in the things that +interested him. +</p> + +<p> +“I say don’t let’s waste this beautiful day in looking for +rooms. I’ll put you up tonight. You can look for rooms tomorrow or +Monday.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. What shall we do?” answered Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s get on a penny steamboat and go down to Greenwich.” +</p> + +<p> +The idea appealed to Hayward, and they jumped into a cab which took them to +Westminster Bridge. They got on the steamboat just as she was starting. +Presently Philip, a smile on his lips, spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember when first I went to Paris, Clutton, I think it was, gave a +long discourse on the subject that beauty is put into things by painters and +poets. They create beauty. In themselves there is nothing to choose between the +Campanile of Giotto and a factory chimney. And then beautiful things grow rich +with the emotion that they have aroused in succeeding generations. That is why +old things are more beautiful than modern. The Ode on a Grecian Urn is more +lovely now than when it was written, because for a hundred years lovers have +read it and the sick at heart taken comfort in its lines.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip left Hayward to infer what in the passing scene had suggested these +words to him, and it was a delight to know that he could safely leave the +inference. It was in sudden reaction from the life he had been leading for so +long that he was now deeply affected. The delicate iridescence of the London +air gave the softness of a pastel to the gray stone of the buildings; and in +the wharfs and storehouses there was the severity of grace of a Japanese print. +They went further down; and the splendid channel, a symbol of the great empire, +broadened, and it was crowded with traffic; Philip thought of the painters and +the poets who had made all these things so beautiful, and his heart was filled +with gratitude. They came to the Pool of London, and who can describe its +majesty? The imagination thrills, and Heaven knows what figures people still +its broad stream, Doctor Johnson with Boswell by his side, an old Pepys going +on board a man-o’-war: the pageant of English history, and romance, and +high adventure. Philip turned to Hayward with shining eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Charles Dickens,” he murmured, smiling a little at his own +emotion. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you rather sorry you chucked painting?” asked +Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you like doctoring?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I hate it, but there was nothing else to do. The drudgery of the +first two years is awful, and unfortunately I haven’t got the scientific +temperament.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you can’t go on changing professions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no. I’m going to stick to this. I think I shall like it better +when I get into the wards. I have an idea that I’m more interested in +people than in anything else in the world. And as far as I can see, it’s +the only profession in which you have your freedom. You carry your knowledge in +your head; with a box of instruments and a few drugs you can make your living +anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to take a practice then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for a good long time at any rate,” Philip answered. “As +soon as I’ve got through my hospital appointments I shall get a ship; I +want to go to the East—the Malay Archipelago, Siam, China, and all that +sort of thing—and then I shall take odd jobs. Something always comes +along, cholera duty in India and things like that. I want to go from place to +place. I want to see the world. The only way a poor man can do that is by going +in for the medical.” +</p> + +<p> +They came to Greenwich then. The noble building of Inigo Jones faced the river +grandly. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, look, that must be the place where Poor Jack dived into the mud +for pennies,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +They wandered in the park. Ragged children were playing in it, and it was noisy +with their cries: here and there old seamen were basking in the sun. There was +an air of a hundred years ago. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems a pity you wasted two years in Paris,” said Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“Waste? Look at the movement of that child, look at the pattern which the +sun makes on the ground, shining through the trees, look at that sky—why, +I should never have seen that sky if I hadn’t been to Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +Hayward thought that Philip choked a sob, and he looked at him with +astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. I’m sorry to be so damned emotional, but for six months +I’ve been starved for beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +“You used to be so matter of fact. It’s very interesting to hear +you say that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn it all, I don’t want to be interesting,” laughed +Philip. “Let’s go and have a stodgy tea.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXV</h2> + +<p> +Hayward’s visit did Philip a great deal of good. Each day his thoughts +dwelt less on Mildred. He looked back upon the past with disgust. He could not +understand how he had submitted to the dishonour of such a love; and when he +thought of Mildred it was with angry hatred, because she had submitted him to +so much humiliation. His imagination presented her to him now with her defects +of person and manner exaggerated, so that he shuddered at the thought of having +been connected with her. +</p> + +<p> +“It just shows how damned weak I am,” he said to himself. The +adventure was like a blunder that one had committed at a party so horrible that +one felt nothing could be done to excuse it: the only remedy was to forget. His +horror at the degradation he had suffered helped him. He was like a snake +casting its skin and he looked upon the old covering with nausea. He exulted in +the possession of himself once more; he realised how much of the delight of the +world he had lost when he was absorbed in that madness which they called love; +he had had enough of it; he did not want to be in love any more if love was +that. Philip told Hayward something of what he had gone through. +</p> + +<p> +“Wasn’t it Sophocles,” he asked, “who prayed for the +time when he would be delivered from the wild beast of passion that devoured +his heart-strings?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip seemed really to be born again. He breathed the circumambient air as +though he had never breathed it before, and he took a child’s pleasure in +all the facts of the world. He called his period of insanity six months’ +hard labour. +</p> + +<p> +Hayward had only been settled in London a few days when Philip received from +Blackstable, where it had been sent, a card for a private view at some picture +gallery. He took Hayward, and, on looking at the catalogue, saw that Lawson had +a picture in it. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he sent the card,” said Philip. “Let’s go +and find him, he’s sure to be in front of his picture.” +</p> + +<p> +This, a profile of Ruth Chalice, was tucked away in a corner, and Lawson was +not far from it. He looked a little lost, in his large soft hat and loose, pale +clothes, amongst the fashionable throng that had gathered for the private view. +He greeted Philip with enthusiasm, and with his usual volubility told him that +he had come to live in London, Ruth Chalice was a hussy, he had taken a studio, +Paris was played out, he had a commission for a portrait, and they’d +better dine together and have a good old talk. Philip reminded him of his +acquaintance with Hayward, and was entertained to see that Lawson was slightly +awed by Hayward’s elegant clothes and grand manner. They sat upon him +better than they had done in the shabby little studio which Lawson and Philip +had shared. +</p> + +<p> +At dinner Lawson went on with his news. Flanagan had gone back to America. +Clutton had disappeared. He had come to the conclusion that a man had no chance +of doing anything so long as he was in contact with art and artists: the only +thing was to get right away. To make the step easier he had quarrelled with all +his friends in Paris. He developed a talent for telling them home truths, which +made them bear with fortitude his declaration that he had done with that city +and was settling in Gerona, a little town in the north of Spain which had +attracted him when he saw it from the train on his way to Barcelona. He was +living there now alone. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if he’ll ever do any good,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He was interested in the human side of that struggle to express something which +was so obscure in the man’s mind that he was become morbid and querulous. +Philip felt vaguely that he was himself in the same case, but with him it was +the conduct of his life as a whole that perplexed him. That was his means of +self-expression, and what he must do with it was not clear. But he had no time +to continue with this train of thought, for Lawson poured out a frank recital +of his affair with Ruth Chalice. She had left him for a young student who had +just come from England, and was behaving in a scandalous fashion. Lawson really +thought someone ought to step in and save the young man. She would ruin him. +Philip gathered that Lawson’s chief grievance was that the rupture had +come in the middle of a portrait he was painting. +</p> + +<p> +“Women have no real feeling for art,” he said. “They only +pretend they have.” But he finished philosophically enough: +“However, I got four portraits out of her, and I’m not sure if the +last I was working on would ever have been a success.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip envied the easy way in which the painter managed his love affairs. He +had passed eighteen months pleasantly enough, had got an excellent model for +nothing, and had parted from her at the end with no great pang. +</p> + +<p> +“And what about Cronshaw?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s done for,” answered Lawson, with the cheerful +callousness of his youth. “He’ll be dead in six months. He got +pneumonia last winter. He was in the English hospital for seven weeks, and when +he came out they told him his only chance was to give up liquor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor devil,” smiled the abstemious Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“He kept off for a bit. He used to go to the Lilas all the same, he +couldn’t keep away from that, but he used to drink hot milk, avec de la +fleur d’oranger, and he was damned dull.” +</p> + +<p> +“I take it you did not conceal the fact from him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he knew it himself. A little while ago he started on whiskey again. +He said he was too old to turn over any new leaves. He would rather be happy +for six months and die at the end of it than linger on for five years. And then +I think he’s been awfully hard up lately. You see, he didn’t earn +anything while he was ill, and the slut he lives with has been giving him a +rotten time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember, the first time I saw him I admired him awfully,” said +Philip. “I thought he was wonderful. It is sickening that vulgar, +middle-class virtue should pay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he was a rotter. He was bound to end in the gutter sooner or +later,” said Lawson. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was hurt because Lawson would not see the pity of it. Of course it was +cause and effect, but in the necessity with which one follows the other lay all +tragedy of life. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’d forgotten,” said Lawson. “Just after you left +he sent round a present for you. I thought you’d be coming back and I +didn’t bother about it, and then I didn’t think it worth sending +on; but it’ll come over to London with the rest of my things, and you can +come to my studio one day and fetch it away if you want it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t told me what it is yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s only a ragged little bit of carpet. I shouldn’t +think it’s worth anything. I asked him one day what the devil he’d +sent the filthy thing for. He told me he’d seen it in a shop in the Rue +de Rennes and bought it for fifteen francs. It appears to be a Persian rug. He +said you’d asked him the meaning of life and that was the answer. But he +was very drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I know. I’ll take it. It was a favourite wheeze of his. He +said I must find out for myself, or else the answer meant nothing.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXVI</h2> + +<p> +Philip worked well and easily; he had a good deal to do, since he was taking in +July the three parts of the First Conjoint examination, two of which he had +failed in before; but he found life pleasant. He made a new friend. Lawson, on +the lookout for models, had discovered a girl who was understudying at one of +the theatres, and in order to induce her to sit to him arranged a little +luncheon-party one Sunday. She brought a chaperon with her; and to her Philip, +asked to make a fourth, was instructed to confine his attentions. He found this +easy, since she turned out to be an agreeable chatterbox with an amusing +tongue. She asked Philip to go and see her; she had rooms in Vincent Square, +and was always in to tea at five o’clock; he went, was delighted with his +welcome, and went again. Mrs. Nesbit was not more than twenty-five, very small, +with a pleasant, ugly face; she had very bright eyes, high cheekbones, and a +large mouth: the excessive contrasts of her colouring reminded one of a +portrait by one of the modern French painters; her skin was very white, her +cheeks were very red, her thick eyebrows, her hair, were very black. The effect +was odd, a little unnatural, but far from unpleasing. She was separated from +her husband and earned her living and her child’s by writing penny +novelettes. There were one or two publishers who made a specialty of that sort +of thing, and she had as much work as she could do. It was ill-paid, she +received fifteen pounds for a story of thirty thousand words; but she was +satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +“After all, it only costs the reader twopence,” she said, +“and they like the same thing over and over again. I just change the +names and that’s all. When I’m bored I think of the washing and the +rent and clothes for baby, and I go on again.” +</p> + +<p> +Besides, she walked on at various theatres where they wanted supers and earned +by this when in work from sixteen shillings to a guinea a week. At the end of +her day she was so tired that she slept like a top. She made the best of her +difficult lot. Her keen sense of humour enabled her to get amusement out of +every vexatious circumstance. Sometimes things went wrong, and she found +herself with no money at all; then her trifling possessions found their way to +a pawnshop in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, and she ate bread and butter till +things grew brighter. She never lost her cheerfulness. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was interested in her shiftless life, and she made him laugh with the +fantastic narration of her struggles. He asked her why she did not try her hand +at literary work of a better sort, but she knew that she had no talent, and the +abominable stuff she turned out by the thousand words was not only tolerably +paid, but was the best she could do. She had nothing to look forward to but a +continuation of the life she led. She seemed to have no relations, and her +friends were as poor as herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think of the future,” she said. “As long as I +have enough money for three weeks’ rent and a pound or two over for food +I never bother. Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the +future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something +always happens.” +</p> + +<p> +Soon Philip grew in the habit of going in to tea with her every day, and so +that his visits might not embarrass her he took in a cake or a pound of butter +or some tea. They started to call one another by their Christian names. +Feminine sympathy was new to him, and he delighted in someone who gave a +willing ear to all his troubles. The hours went quickly. He did not hide his +admiration for her. She was a delightful companion. He could not help comparing +her with Mildred; and he contrasted with the one’s obstinate stupidity, +which refused interest to everything she did not know, the other’s quick +appreciation and ready intelligence. His heart sank when he thought that he +might have been tied for life to such a woman as Mildred. One evening he told +Norah the whole story of his love. It was not one to give him much reason for +self-esteem, and it was very pleasant to receive such charming sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’re well out of it,” she said, when he had +finished. +</p> + +<p> +She had a funny way at times of holding her head on one side like an Aberdeen +puppy. She was sitting in an upright chair, sewing, for she had no time to do +nothing, and Philip had made himself comfortable at her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell you how heartily thankful I am it’s all +over,” he sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor thing, you must have had a rotten time,” she murmured, and by +way of showing her sympathy put her hand on his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +He took it and kissed it, but she withdrew it quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you do that?” she asked, with a blush. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any objection?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him for a moment with twinkling eyes, and she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He got up on his knees and faced her. She looked into his eyes steadily, and +her large mouth trembled with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, you are a ripper. I’m so grateful to you for being nice +to me. I like you so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be idiotic,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip took hold of her elbows and drew her towards him. She made no +resistance, but bent forward a little, and he kissed her red lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you do that?” she asked again. +</p> + +<p> +“Because it’s comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, but a tender look came into her eyes, and she passed her +hand softly over his hair. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, it’s awfully silly of you to behave like this. We were +such good friends. It would be so jolly to leave it at that.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you really want to appeal to my better nature,” replied Philip, +“you’ll do well not to stroke my cheek while you’re doing +it.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a little chuckle, but she did not stop. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very wrong of me, isn’t it?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, surprised and a little amused, looked into her eyes, and as he looked +he saw them soften and grow liquid, and there was an expression in them that +enchanted him. His heart was suddenly stirred, and tears came to his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah, you’re not fond of me, are you?” he asked, +incredulously. +</p> + +<p> +“You clever boy, you ask such stupid questions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear, it never struck me that you could be.” +</p> + +<p> +He flung his arms round her and kissed her, while she, laughing, blushing, and +crying, surrendered herself willingly to his embrace. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he released her and sitting back on his heels looked at her +curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m blowed!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so surprised.” +</p> + +<p> +“And pleased?” +</p> + +<p> +“Delighted,” he cried with all his heart, “and so proud and +so happy and so grateful.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hands and covered them with kisses. This was the beginning for +Philip of a happiness which seemed both solid and durable. They became lovers +but remained friends. There was in Norah a maternal instinct which received +satisfaction in her love for Philip; she wanted someone to pet, and scold, and +make a fuss of; she had a domestic temperament and found pleasure in looking +after his health and his linen. She pitied his deformity, over which he was so +sensitive, and her pity expressed itself instinctively in tenderness. She was +young, strong, and healthy, and it seemed quite natural to her to give her +love. She had high spirits and a merry soul. She liked Philip because he +laughed with her at all the amusing things in life that caught her fancy, and +above all she liked him because he was he. +</p> + +<p> +When she told him this he answered gaily: +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense. You like me because I’m a silent person and never want +to get a word in.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not love her at all. He was extremely fond of her, glad to be with +her, amused and interested by her conversation. She restored his belief in +himself and put healing ointments, as it were, on all the bruises of his soul. +He was immensely flattered that she cared for him. He admired her courage, her +optimism, her impudent defiance of fate; she had a little philosophy of her +own, ingenuous and practical. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, I don’t believe in churches and parsons and all +that,” she said, “but I believe in God, and I don’t believe +He minds much about what you do as long as you keep your end up and help a lame +dog over a stile when you can. And I think people on the whole are very nice, +and I’m sorry for those who aren’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what about afterwards?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I don’t know for certain, you know,” she smiled, +“but I hope for the best. And anyhow there’ll be no rent to pay and +no novelettes to write.” +</p> + +<p> +She had a feminine gift for delicate flattery. She thought that Philip did a +brave thing when he left Paris because he was conscious he could not be a great +artist; and he was enchanted when she expressed enthusiastic admiration for +him. He had never been quite certain whether this action indicated courage or +infirmity of purpose. It was delightful to realise that she considered it +heroic. She ventured to tackle him on a subject which his friends instinctively +avoided. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very silly of you to be so sensitive about your +club-foot,” she said. She saw him blush darkly, but went on. “You +know, people don’t think about it nearly as much as you do. They notice +it the first time they see you, and then they forget about it.” +</p> + +<p> +He would not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not angry with me, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her arm round his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, I only speak about it because I love you. I don’t want +it to make you unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you can say anything you choose to me,” he answered, +smiling. “I wish I could do something to show you how grateful I am to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +She took him in hand in other ways. She would not let him be bearish and +laughed at him when he was out of temper. She made him more urbane. +</p> + +<p> +“You can make me do anything you like,” he said to her once. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I want to do what you like.” +</p> + +<p> +He had the sense to realise his happiness. It seemed to him that she gave him +all that a wife could, and he preserved his freedom; she was the most charming +friend he had ever had, with a sympathy that he had never found in a man. The +sexual relationship was no more than the strongest link in their friendship. It +completed it, but was not essential. And because Philip’s appetites were +satisfied, he became more equable and easier to live with. He felt in complete +possession of himself. He thought sometimes of the winter, during which he had +been obsessed by a hideous passion, and he was filled with loathing for Mildred +and with horror of himself. +</p> + +<p> +His examinations were approaching, and Norah was as interested in them as he. +He was flattered and touched by her eagerness. She made him promise to come at +once and tell her the results. He passed the three parts this time without +mishap, and when he went to tell her she burst into tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m so glad, I was so anxious.” +</p> + +<p> +“You silly little thing,” he laughed, but he was choking. +</p> + +<p> +No one could help being pleased with the way she took it. +</p> + +<p> +“And what are you going to do now?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I can take a holiday with a clear conscience. I have no work to do till +the winter session begins in October.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’ll go down to your uncle’s at +Blackstable?” +</p> + +<p> +“You suppose quite wrong. I’m going to stay in London and play with +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather you went away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Are you tired of me?” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed and put her hands on his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Because you’ve been working hard, and you look utterly washed out. +You want some fresh air and a rest. Please go.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer for a moment. He looked at her with loving eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, I’d never believe it of anyone but you. You’re +only thinking of my good. I wonder what you see in me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you give me a good character with my month’s notice?” +she laughed gaily. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll say that you’re thoughtful and kind, and you’re +not exacting; you never worry, you’re not troublesome, and you’re +easy to please.” +</p> + +<p> +“All that’s nonsense,” she said, “but I’ll tell +you one thing: I’m one of the few persons I ever met who are able to +learn from experience.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXVII</h2> + +<p> +Philip looked forward to his return to London with impatience. During the two +months he spent at Blackstable Norah wrote to him frequently, long letters in a +bold, large hand, in which with cheerful humour she described the little events +of the daily round, the domestic troubles of her landlady, rich food for +laughter, the comic vexations of her rehearsals—she was walking on in an +important spectacle at one of the London theatres—and her odd adventures +with the publishers of novelettes. Philip read a great deal, bathed, played +tennis, and sailed. At the beginning of October he settled down in London to +work for the Second Conjoint examination. He was eager to pass it, since that +ended the drudgery of the curriculum; after it was done with the student became +an out-patients’ clerk, and was brought in contact with men and women as +well as with text-books. Philip saw Norah every day. +</p> + +<p> +Lawson had been spending the summer at Poole, and had a number of sketches to +show of the harbour and of the beach. He had a couple of commissions for +portraits and proposed to stay in London till the bad light drove him away. +Hayward, in London too, intended to spend the winter abroad, but remained week +after week from sheer inability to make up his mind to go. Hayward had run to +fat during the last two or three years—it was five years since Philip +first met him in Heidelberg—and he was prematurely bald. He was very +sensitive about it and wore his hair long to conceal the unsightly patch on the +crown of his head. His only consolation was that his brow was now very noble. +His blue eyes had lost their colour; they had a listless droop; and his mouth, +losing the fulness of youth, was weak and pale. He still talked vaguely of the +things he was going to do in the future, but with less conviction; and he was +conscious that his friends no longer believed in him: when he had drank two or +three glasses of whiskey he was inclined to be elegiac. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a failure,” he murmured, “I’m unfit for the +brutality of the struggle of life. All I can do is to stand aside and let the +vulgar throng hustle by in their pursuit of the good things.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave you the impression that to fail was a more delicate, a more exquisite +thing, than to succeed. He insinuated that his aloofness was due to distaste +for all that was common and low. He talked beautifully of Plato. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought you’d got through with Plato by now,” +said Philip impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +He was not inclined to pursue the subject. He had discovered of late the +effective dignity of silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see the use of reading the same thing over and over +again,” said Philip. “That’s only a laborious form of +idleness.” +</p> + +<p> +“But are you under the impression that you have so great a mind that you +can understand the most profound writer at a first reading?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to understand him, I’m not a critic. I’m +not interested in him for his sake but for mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why d’you read then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Partly for pleasure, because it’s a habit and I’m just as +uncomfortable if I don’t read as if I don’t smoke, and partly to +know myself. When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now +and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning +for ME, and it becomes part of me; I’ve got out of the book all +that’s any use to me, and I can’t get anything more if I read it a +dozen times. You see, it seems to me, one’s like a closed bud, and most +of what one reads and does has no effect at all; but there are certain things +that have a peculiar significance for one, and they open a petal; and the +petals open one by one; and at last the flower is there.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was not satisfied with his metaphor, but he did not know how else to +explain a thing which he felt and yet was not clear about. +</p> + +<p> +“You want to do things, you want to become things,” said Hayward, +with a shrug of the shoulders. “It’s so vulgar.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip knew Hayward very well by now. He was weak and vain, so vain that you +had to be on the watch constantly not to hurt his feelings; he mingled idleness +and idealism so that he could not separate them. At Lawson’s studio one +day he met a journalist, who was charmed by his conversation, and a week later +the editor of a paper wrote to suggest that he should do some criticism for +him. For forty-eight hours Hayward lived in an agony of indecision. He had +talked of getting occupation of this sort so long that he had not the face to +refuse outright, but the thought of doing anything filled him with panic. At +last he declined the offer and breathed freely. +</p> + +<p> +“It would have interfered with my work,” he told Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“What work?” asked Philip brutally. +</p> + +<p> +“My inner life,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +Then he went on to say beautiful things about Amiel, the professor of Geneva, +whose brilliancy promised achievement which was never fulfilled; till at his +death the reason of his failure and the excuse were at once manifest in the +minute, wonderful journal which was found among his papers. Hayward smiled +enigmatically. +</p> + +<p> +But Hayward could still talk delightfully about books; his taste was exquisite +and his discrimination elegant; and he had a constant interest in ideas, which +made him an entertaining companion. They meant nothing to him really, since +they never had any effect on him; but he treated them as he might have pieces +of china in an auction-room, handling them with pleasure in their shape and +their glaze, pricing them in his mind; and then, putting them back into their +case, thought of them no more. +</p> + +<p> +And it was Hayward who made a momentous discovery. One evening, after due +preparation, he took Philip and Lawson to a tavern situated in Beak Street, +remarkable not only in itself and for its history—it had memories of +eighteenth-century glories which excited the romantic imagination—but for +its snuff, which was the best in London, and above all for its punch. Hayward +led them into a large, long room, dingily magnificent, with huge pictures on +the walls of nude women: they were vast allegories of the school of Haydon; but +smoke, gas, and the London atmosphere had given them a richness which made them +look like old masters. The dark panelling, the massive, tarnished gold of the +cornice, the mahogany tables, gave the room an air of sumptuous comfort, and +the leather-covered seats along the wall were soft and easy. There was a +ram’s head on a table opposite the door, and this contained the +celebrated snuff. They ordered punch. They drank it. It was hot rum punch. The +pen falters when it attempts to treat of the excellence thereof; the sober +vocabulary, the sparse epithet of this narrative, are inadequate to the task; +and pompous terms, jewelled, exotic phrases rise to the excited fancy. It +warmed the blood and cleared the head; it filled the soul with well-being; it +disposed the mind at once to utter wit and to appreciate the wit of others; it +had the vagueness of music and the precision of mathematics. Only one of its +qualities was comparable to anything else: it had the warmth of a good heart; +but its taste, its smell, its feel, were not to be described in words. Charles +Lamb, with his infinite tact, attempting to, might have drawn charming pictures +of the life of his day; Lord Byron in a stanza of Don Juan, aiming at the +impossible, might have achieved the sublime; Oscar Wilde, heaping jewels of +Ispahan upon brocades of Byzantium, might have created a troubling beauty. +Considering it, the mind reeled under visions of the feasts of Elagabalus; and +the subtle harmonies of Debussy mingled with the musty, fragrant romance of +chests in which have been kept old clothes, ruffs, hose, doublets, of a +forgotten generation, and the wan odour of lilies of the valley and the savour +of Cheddar cheese. +</p> + +<p> +Hayward discovered the tavern at which this priceless beverage was to be +obtained by meeting in the street a man called Macalister who had been at +Cambridge with him. He was a stockbroker and a philosopher. He was accustomed +to go to the tavern once a week; and soon Philip, Lawson, and Hayward got into +the habit of meeting there every Tuesday evening: change of manners made it now +little frequented, which was an advantage to persons who took pleasure in +conversation. Macalister was a big-boned fellow, much too short for his width, +with a large, fleshy face and a soft voice. He was a student of Kant and judged +everything from the standpoint of pure reason. He was fond of expounding his +doctrines. Philip listened with excited interest. He had long come to the +conclusion that nothing amused him more than metaphysics, but he was not so +sure of their efficacy in the affairs of life. The neat little system which he +had formed as the result of his meditations at Blackstable had not been of +conspicuous use during his infatuation for Mildred. He could not be positive +that reason was much help in the conduct of life. It seemed to him that life +lived itself. He remembered very vividly the violence of the emotion which had +possessed him and his inability, as if he were tied down to the ground with +ropes, to react against it. He read many wise things in books, but he could +only judge from his own experience (he did not know whether he was different +from other people); he did not calculate the pros and cons of an action, the +benefits which must befall him if he did it, the harm which might result from +the omission; but his whole being was urged on irresistibly. He did not act +with a part of himself but altogether. The power that possessed him seemed to +have nothing to do with reason: all that reason did was to point out the +methods of obtaining what his whole soul was striving for. +</p> + +<p> +Macalister reminded him of the Categorical Imperative. +</p> + +<p> +“Act so that every action of yours should be capable of becoming a +universal rule of action for all men.” +</p> + +<p> +“That seems to me perfect nonsense,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a bold man to say that of anything stated by Immanuel +Kant,” retorted Macalister. +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Reverence for what somebody said is a stultifying quality: +there’s a damned sight too much reverence in the world. Kant thought +things not because they were true, but because he was Kant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is your objection to the Categorical Imperative?” (They +talked as though the fate of empires were in the balance.) +</p> + +<p> +“It suggests that one can choose one’s course by an effort of will. +And it suggests that reason is the surest guide. Why should its dictates be any +better than those of passion? They’re different. That’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to be a contented slave of your passions.” +</p> + +<p> +“A slave because I can’t help myself, but not a contented +one,” laughed Philip. +</p> + +<p> +While he spoke he thought of that hot madness which had driven him in pursuit +of Mildred. He remembered how he had chafed against it and how he had felt the +degradation of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God, I’m free from all that now,” he thought. +</p> + +<p> +And yet even as he said it he was not quite sure whether he spoke sincerely. +When he was under the influence of passion he had felt a singular vigour, and +his mind had worked with unwonted force. He was more alive, there was an +excitement in sheer being, an eager vehemence of soul, which made life now a +trifle dull. For all the misery he had endured there was a compensation in that +sense of rushing, overwhelming existence. +</p> + +<p> +But Philip’s unlucky words engaged him in a discussion on the freedom of +the will, and Macalister, with his well-stored memory, brought out argument +after argument. He had a mind that delighted in dialectics, and he forced +Philip to contradict himself; he pushed him into corners from which he could +only escape by damaging concessions; he tripped him up with logic and battered +him with authorities. +</p> + +<p> +At last Philip said: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I can’t say anything about other people. I can only speak +for myself. The illusion of free will is so strong in my mind that I +can’t get away from it, but I believe it is only an illusion. But it is +an illusion which is one of the strongest motives of my actions. Before I do +anything I feel that I have choice, and that influences what I do; but +afterwards, when the thing is done, I believe that it was inevitable from all +eternity.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you deduce from that?” asked Hayward. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, merely the futility of regret. It’s no good crying over spilt +milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXVIII</h2> + +<p> +One morning Philip on getting up felt his head swim, and going back to bed +suddenly discovered he was ill. All his limbs ached and he shivered with cold. +When the landlady brought in his breakfast he called to her through the open +door that he was not well, and asked for a cup of tea and a piece of toast. A +few minutes later there was a knock at his door, and Griffiths came in. They +had lived in the same house for over a year, but had never done more than nod +to one another in the passage. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I hear you’re seedy,” said Griffiths. “I +thought I’d come in and see what was the matter with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, blushing he knew not why, made light of the whole thing. He would be +all right in an hour or two. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’d better let me take your temperature,” said +Griffiths. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s quite unnecessary,” answered Philip irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip put the thermometer in his mouth. Griffiths sat on the side of the bed +and chatted brightly for a moment, then he took it out and looked at it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, old man, you must stay in bed, and I’ll bring old +Deacon in to have a look at you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” said Philip. “There’s nothing the matter. I +wish you wouldn’t bother about me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it isn’t any bother. You’ve got a temperature and you +must stay in bed. You will, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a peculiar charm in his manner, a mingling of gravity and kindliness, +which was infinitely attractive. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a wonderful bed-side manner,” Philip murmured, +closing his eyes with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +Griffiths shook out his pillow for him, deftly smoothed down the bedclothes, +and tucked him up. He went into Philip’s sitting-room to look for a +siphon, could not find one, and fetched it from his own room. He drew down the +blind. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, go to sleep and I’ll bring the old man round as soon as +he’s done the wards.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed hours before anyone came to Philip. His head felt as if it would +split, anguish rent his limbs, and he was afraid he was going to cry. Then +there was a knock at the door and Griffiths, healthy, strong, and cheerful, +came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s Doctor Deacon,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The physician stepped forward, an elderly man with a bland manner, whom Philip +knew only by sight. A few questions, a brief examination, and the diagnosis. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you make it?” he asked Griffiths, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Influenza.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right.” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Deacon looked round the dingy lodging-house room. +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t you like to go to the hospital? They’ll put you in +a private ward, and you can be better looked after than you can here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather stay where I am,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He did not want to be disturbed, and he was always shy of new surroundings. He +did not fancy nurses fussing about him, and the dreary cleanliness of the +hospital. +</p> + +<p> +“I can look after him, sir,” said Griffiths at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well.” +</p> + +<p> +He wrote a prescription, gave instructions, and left. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’ve got to do exactly as I tell you,” said Griffiths. +“I’m day-nurse and night-nurse all in one.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very kind of you, but I shan’t want anything,” +said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Griffiths put his hand on Philip’s forehead, a large cool, dry hand, and +the touch seemed to him good. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m just going to take this round to the dispensary to have it +made up, and then I’ll come back.” +</p> + +<p> +In a little while he brought the medicine and gave Philip a dose. Then he went +upstairs to fetch his books. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t mind my working in your room this afternoon, will +you?” he said, when he came down. “I’ll leave the door open +so that you can give me a shout if you want anything.” +</p> + +<p> +Later in the day Philip, awaking from an uneasy doze, heard voices in his +sitting-room. A friend had come in to see Griffiths. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you’d better not come in tonight,” he heard Griffiths +saying. +</p> + +<p> +And then a minute or two afterwards someone else entered the room and expressed +his surprise at finding Griffiths there. Philip heard him explain. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m looking after a second year’s man who’s got these +rooms. The wretched blighter’s down with influenza. No whist tonight, old +man.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently Griffiths was left alone and Philip called him. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you’re not putting off a party tonight, are you?” he +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Not on your account. I must work at my surgery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t put it off. I shall be all right. You needn’t bother +about me.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip grew worse. As the night came on he became slightly delirious, but +towards morning he awoke from a restless sleep. He saw Griffiths get out of an +arm-chair, go down on his knees, and with his fingers put piece after piece of +coal on the fire. He was in pyjamas and a dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing here?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I wake you up? I tried to make up the fire without making a +row.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why aren’t you in bed? What’s the time?” +</p> + +<p> +“About five. I thought I’d better sit up with you tonight. I +brought an arm-chair in as I thought if I put a mattress down I should sleep so +soundly that I shouldn’t hear you if you wanted anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t be so good to me,” groaned Philip. +“Suppose you catch it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you shall nurse me, old man,” said Griffiths, with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning Griffiths drew up the blind. He looked pale and tired after his +night’s watch, but was full of spirits. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I’m going to wash you,” he said to Philip cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“I can wash myself,” said Philip, ashamed. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense. If you were in the small ward a nurse would wash you, and I +can do it just as well as a nurse.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, too weak and wretched to resist, allowed Griffiths to wash his hands +and face, his feet, his chest and back. He did it with charming tenderness, +carrying on meanwhile a stream of friendly chatter; then he changed the sheet +just as they did at the hospital, shook out the pillow, and arranged the +bed-clothes. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like Sister Arthur to see me. It would make her sit up. +Deacon’s coming in to see you early.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t imagine why you should be so good to me,” said +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s good practice for me. It’s rather a lark having a +patient.” +</p> + +<p> +Griffiths gave him his breakfast and went off to get dressed and have something +to eat. A few minutes before ten he came back with a bunch of grapes and a few +flowers. +</p> + +<p> +“You are awfully kind,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He was in bed for five days. +</p> + +<p> +Norah and Griffiths nursed him between them. Though Griffiths was the same age +as Philip he adopted towards him a humorous, motherly attitude. He was a +thoughtful fellow, gentle and encouraging; but his greatest quality was a +vitality which seemed to give health to everyone with whom he came in contact. +Philip was unused to the petting which most people enjoy from mothers or +sisters and he was deeply touched by the feminine tenderness of this strong +young man. Philip grew better. Then Griffiths, sitting idly in Philip’s +room, amused him with gay stories of amorous adventure. He was a flirtatious +creature, capable of carrying on three or four affairs at a time; and his +account of the devices he was forced to in order to keep out of difficulties +made excellent hearing. He had a gift for throwing a romantic glamour over +everything that happened to him. He was crippled with debts, everything he had +of any value was pawned, but he managed always to be cheerful, extravagant, and +generous. He was the adventurer by nature. He loved people of doubtful +occupations and shifty purposes; and his acquaintance among the riff-raff that +frequents the bars of London was enormous. Loose women, treating him as a +friend, told him the troubles, difficulties, and successes of their lives; and +card-sharpers, respecting his impecuniosity, stood him dinners and lent him +five-pound notes. He was ploughed in his examinations time after time; but he +bore this cheerfully, and submitted with such a charming grace to the parental +expostulations that his father, a doctor in practice at Leeds, had not the +heart to be seriously angry with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m an awful fool at books,” he said cheerfully, “but +I CAN’T work.” +</p> + +<p> +Life was much too jolly. But it was clear that when he had got through the +exuberance of his youth, and was at last qualified, he would be a tremendous +success in practice. He would cure people by the sheer charm of his manner. +</p> + +<p> +Philip worshipped him as at school he had worshipped boys who were tall and +straight and high of spirits. By the time he was well they were fast friends, +and it was a peculiar satisfaction to Philip that Griffiths seemed to enjoy +sitting in his little parlour, wasting Philip’s time with his amusing +chatter and smoking innumerable cigarettes. Philip took him sometimes to the +tavern off Regent Street. Hayward found him stupid, but Lawson recognised his +charm and was eager to paint him; he was a picturesque figure with his blue +eyes, white skin, and curly hair. Often they discussed things he knew nothing +about, and then he sat quietly, with a good-natured smile on his handsome face, +feeling quite rightly that his presence was sufficient contribution to the +entertainment of the company. When he discovered that Macalister was a +stockbroker he was eager for tips; and Macalister, with his grave smile, told +him what fortunes he could have made if he had bought certain stock at certain +times. It made Philip’s mouth water, for in one way and another he was +spending more than he had expected, and it would have suited him very well to +make a little money by the easy method Macalister suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Next time I hear of a really good thing I’ll let you know,” +said the stockbroker. “They do come along sometimes. It’s only a +matter of biding one’s time.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip could not help thinking how delightful it would be to make fifty pounds, +so that he could give Norah the furs she so badly needed for the winter. He +looked at the shops in Regent Street and picked out the articles he could buy +for the money. She deserved everything. She made his life very happy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXIX</h2> + +<p> +One afternoon, when he went back to his rooms from the hospital to wash and +tidy himself before going to tea as usual with Norah, as he let himself in with +his latch-key, his landlady opened the door for him. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a lady waiting to see you,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” exclaimed Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He was surprised. It would only be Norah, and he had no idea what had brought +her. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t ’ave let her in, only she’s been three +times, and she seemed that upset at not finding you, so I told her she could +wait.” +</p> + +<p> +He pushed past the explaining landlady and burst into the room. His heart +turned sick. It was Mildred. She was sitting down, but got up hurriedly as he +came in. She did not move towards him nor speak. He was so surprised that he +did not know what he was saying. +</p> + +<p> +“What the hell d’you want?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, but began to cry. She did not put her hands to her eyes, +but kept them hanging by the side of her body. She looked like a housemaid +applying for a situation. There was a dreadful humility in her bearing. Philip +did not know what feelings came over him. He had a sudden impulse to turn round +and escape from the room. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he said at +last. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I was dead,” she moaned. +</p> + +<p> +Philip left her standing where she was. He could only think at the moment of +steadying himself. His knees were shaking. He looked at her, and he groaned in +despair. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s left me—Emil.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart bounded. He knew then that he loved her as passionately as +ever. He had never ceased to love her. She was standing before him humble and +unresisting. He wished to take her in his arms and cover her tear-stained face +with kisses. Oh, how long the separation had been! He did not know how he could +have endured it. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better sit down. Let me give you a drink.” +</p> + +<p> +He drew the chair near the fire and she sat in it. He mixed her whiskey and +soda, and, sobbing still, she drank it. She looked at him with great, mournful +eyes. There were large black lines under them. She was thinner and whiter than +when last he had seen her. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I’d married you when you asked me,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not know why the remark seemed to swell his heart. He could not keep +the distance from her which he had forced upon himself. He put his hand on her +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry you’re in trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +She leaned her head against his bosom and burst into hysterical crying. Her hat +was in the way and she took it off. He had never dreamt that she was capable of +crying like that. He kissed her again and again. It seemed to ease her a +little. +</p> + +<p> +“You were always good to me, Philip,” she said. “That’s +why I knew I could come to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what’s happened.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I can’t, I can’t,” she cried out, breaking away +from him. +</p> + +<p> +He sank down on his knees beside her and put his cheek against hers. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know that there’s nothing you can’t tell me? +I can never blame you for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +She told him the story little by little, and sometimes she sobbed so much that +he could hardly understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Last Monday week he went up to Birmingham, and he promised to be back on +Thursday, and he never came, and he didn’t come on the Friday, so I wrote +to ask what was the matter, and he never answered the letter. And I wrote and +said that if I didn’t hear from him by return I’d go up to +Birmingham, and this morning I got a solicitor’s letter to say I had no +claim on him, and if I molested him he’d seek the protection of the +law.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s absurd,” cried Philip. “A man can’t +treat his wife like that. Had you had a row?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, we’d had a quarrel on the Sunday, and he said he was sick +of me, but he’d said it before, and he’d come back all right. I +didn’t think he meant it. He was frightened, because I told him a baby +was coming. I kept it from him as long as I could. Then I had to tell him. He +said it was my fault, and I ought to have known better. If you’d only +heard the things he said to me! But I found out precious quick that he +wasn’t a gentleman. He left me without a penny. He hadn’t paid the +rent, and I hadn’t got the money to pay it, and the woman who kept the +house said such things to me—well, I might have been a thief the way she +talked.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were going to take a flat.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what he said, but we just took furnished apartments in +Highbury. He was that mean. He said I was extravagant, he didn’t give me +anything to be extravagant with.” +</p> + +<p> +She had an extraordinary way of mixing the trivial with the important. Philip +was puzzled. The whole thing was incomprehensible. +</p> + +<p> +“No man could be such a blackguard.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know him. I wouldn’t go back to him now not if he +was to come and ask me on his bended knees. I was a fool ever to think of him. +And he wasn’t earning the money he said he was. The lies he told +me!” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought for a minute or two. He was so deeply moved by her distress that +he could not think of himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like me to go to Birmingham? I could see him and try to make +things up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there’s no chance of that. He’ll never come back now, I +know him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he must provide for you. He can’t get out of that. I +don’t know anything about these things, you’d better go and see a +solicitor.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I? I haven’t got the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll pay all that. I’ll write a note to my own solicitor, +the sportsman who was my father’s executor. Would you like me to come +with you now? I expect he’ll still be at his office.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, give me a letter to him. I’ll go alone.” +</p> + +<p> +She was a little calmer now. He sat down and wrote a note. Then he remembered +that she had no money. He had fortunately changed a cheque the day before and +was able to give her five pounds. +</p> + +<p> +“You are good to me, Philip,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so happy to be able to do something for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you fond of me still?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just as fond as ever.” +</p> + +<p> +She put up her lips and he kissed her. There was a surrender in the action +which he had never seen in her before. It was worth all the agony he had +suffered. +</p> + +<p> +She went away and he found that she had been there for two hours. He was +extraordinarily happy. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor thing, poor thing,” he murmured to himself, his heart glowing +with a greater love than he had ever felt before. +</p> + +<p> +He never thought of Norah at all till about eight o’clock a telegram +came. He knew before opening it that it was from her. +</p> + +<p> +Is anything the matter? Norah. +</p> + +<p> +He did not know what to do nor what to answer. He could fetch her after the +play, in which she was walking on, was over and stroll home with her as he +sometimes did; but his whole soul revolted against the idea of seeing her that +evening. He thought of writing to her, but he could not bring himself to +address her as usual, dearest Norah. He made up his mind to telegraph. +</p> + +<p> +Sorry. Could not get away, Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He visualised her. He was slightly repelled by the ugly little face, with its +high cheekbones and the crude colour. There was a coarseness in her skin which +gave him goose-flesh. He knew that his telegram must be followed by some action +on his part, but at all events it postponed it. +</p> + +<p> +Next day he wired again. +</p> + +<p> +Regret, unable to come. Will write. +</p> + +<p> +Mildred had suggested coming at four in the afternoon, and he would not tell +her that the hour was inconvenient. After all she came first. He waited for her +impatiently. He watched for her at the window and opened the front-door +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Well? Did you see Nixon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she answered. “He said it wasn’t any good. +Nothing’s to be done. I must just grin and bear it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s impossible,” cried Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She sat down wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“Did he give any reasons?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a crumpled letter. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s your letter, Philip. I never took it. I couldn’t +tell you yesterday, I really couldn’t. Emil didn’t marry me. He +couldn’t. He had a wife already and three children.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt a sudden pang of jealousy and anguish. It was almost more than he +could bear. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s why I couldn’t go back to my aunt. There’s no +one I can go to but you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What made you go away with him?” Philip asked, in a low voice +which he struggled to make firm. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I didn’t know he was a married man at first, +and when he told me I gave him a piece of my mind. And then I didn’t see +him for months, and when he came to the shop again and asked me I don’t +know what came over me. I felt as if I couldn’t help it. I had to go with +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you in love with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I couldn’t hardly help laughing at the things +he said. And there was something about him—he said I’d never regret +it, he promised to give me seven pounds a week—he said he was earning +fifteen, and it was all a lie, he wasn’t. And then I was sick of going to +the shop every morning, and I wasn’t getting on very well with my aunt; +she wanted to treat me as a servant instead of a relation, said I ought to do +my own room, and if I didn’t do it nobody was going to do it for me. Oh, +I wish I hadn’t. But when he came to the shop and asked me I felt I +couldn’t help it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip moved away from her. He sat down at the table and buried his face in his +hands. He felt dreadfully humiliated. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not angry with me, Philip?” she asked piteously. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered, looking up but away from her, “only +I’m awfully hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, I was so dreadfully in love with you. I did everything I could +to make you care for me. I thought you were incapable of loving anyone. +It’s so horrible to know that you were willing to sacrifice everything +for that bounder. I wonder what you saw in him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, Philip. I regretted it bitterly afterwards, I +promise you that.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought of Emil Miller, with his pasty, unhealthy look, his shifty blue +eyes, and the vulgar smartness of his appearance; he always wore bright red +knitted waistcoats. Philip sighed. She got up and went to him. She put her arm +round his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never forget that you offered to marry me, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand and looked up at her. She bent down and kissed him. +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, if you want me still I’ll do anything you like now. I know +you’re a gentleman in every sense of the word.” +</p> + +<p> +His heart stood still. Her words made him feel slightly sick. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awfully good of you, but I couldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you care for me any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I love you with all my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why shouldn’t we have a good time while we’ve got the +chance? You see, it can’t matter now.” +</p> + +<p> +He released himself from her. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand. I’ve been sick with love for you ever +since I saw you, but now—that man. I’ve unfortunately got a vivid +imagination. The thought of it simply disgusts me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are funny,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand again and smiled at her. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t think I’m not grateful. I can never thank you +enough, but you see, it’s just stronger than I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a good friend, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +They went on talking, and soon they had returned to the familiar companionship +of old days. It grew late. Philip suggested that they should dine together and +go to a music-hall. She wanted some persuasion, for she had an idea of acting +up to her situation, and felt instinctively that it did not accord with her +distressed condition to go to a place of entertainment. At last Philip asked +her to go simply to please him, and when she could look upon it as an act of +self-sacrifice she accepted. She had a new thoughtfulness which delighted +Philip. She asked him to take her to the little restaurant in Soho to which +they had so often been; he was infinitely grateful to her, because her +suggestion showed that happy memories were attached to it. She grew much more +cheerful as dinner proceeded. The Burgundy from the public house at the corner +warmed her heart, and she forgot that she ought to preserve a dolorous +countenance. Philip thought it safe to speak to her of the future. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you haven’t got a brass farthing, have you?” he +asked, when an opportunity presented itself. +</p> + +<p> +“Only what you gave me yesterday, and I had to give the landlady three +pounds of that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’d better give you a tenner to go on with. I’ll go +and see my solicitor and get him to write to Miller. We can make him pay up +something, I’m sure. If we can get a hundred pounds out of him +it’ll carry you on till after the baby comes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t take a penny from him. I’d rather starve.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s monstrous that he should leave you in the lurch like +this.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got my pride to consider.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a little awkward for Philip. He needed rigid economy to make his own +money last till he was qualified, and he must have something over to keep him +during the year he intended to spend as house physician and house surgeon +either at his own or at some other hospital. But Mildred had told him various +stories of Emil’s meanness, and he was afraid to remonstrate with her in +case she accused him too of want of generosity. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t take a penny piece from him. I’d sooner beg my +bread. I’d have seen about getting some work to do long before now, only +it wouldn’t be good for me in the state I’m in. You have to think +of your health, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t bother about the present,” said Philip. “I +can let you have all you want till you’re fit to work again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew I could depend on you. I told Emil he needn’t think I +hadn’t got somebody to go to. I told him you was a gentleman in every +sense of the word.” +</p> + +<p> +By degrees Philip learned how the separation had come about. It appeared that +the fellow’s wife had discovered the adventure he was engaged in during +his periodical visits to London, and had gone to the head of the firm that +employed him. She threatened to divorce him, and they announced that they would +dismiss him if she did. He was passionately devoted to his children and could +not bear the thought of being separated from them. When he had to choose +between his wife and his mistress he chose his wife. He had been always anxious +that there should be no child to make the entanglement more complicated; and +when Mildred, unable longer to conceal its approach, informed him of the fact, +he was seized with panic. He picked a quarrel and left her without more ado. +</p> + +<p> +“When d’you expect to be confined?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“At the beginning of March.” +</p> + +<p> +“Three months.” +</p> + +<p> +It was necessary to discuss plans. Mildred declared she would not remain in the +rooms at Highbury, and Philip thought it more convenient too that she should be +nearer to him. He promised to look for something next day. She suggested the +Vauxhall Bridge Road as a likely neighbourhood. +</p> + +<p> +“And it would be near for afterwards,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I should only be able to stay there about two months or a little +more, and then I should have to go into a house. I know a very respectable +place, where they have a most superior class of people, and they take you for +four guineas a week and no extras. Of course the doctor’s extra, but +that’s all. A friend of mine went there, and the lady who keeps it is a +thorough lady. I mean to tell her that my husband’s an officer in India +and I’ve come to London for my baby, because it’s better for my +health.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed extraordinary to Philip to hear her talking in this way. With her +delicate little features and her pale face she looked cold and maidenly. When +he thought of the passions that burnt within her, so unexpected, his heart was +strangely troubled. His pulse beat quickly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXX</h2> + +<p> +Philip expected to find a letter from Norah when he got back to his rooms, but +there was nothing; nor did he receive one the following morning. The silence +irritated and at the same time alarmed him. They had seen one another every day +he had been in London since the previous June; and it must seem odd to her that +he should let two days go by without visiting her or offering a reason for his +absence; he wondered whether by an unlucky chance she had seen him with +Mildred. He could not bear to think that she was hurt or unhappy, and he made +up his mind to call on her that afternoon. He was almost inclined to reproach +her because he had allowed himself to get on such intimate terms with her. The +thought of continuing them filled him with disgust. +</p> + +<p> +He found two rooms for Mildred on the second floor of a house in the Vauxhall +Bridge Road. They were noisy, but he knew that she liked the rattle of traffic +under her windows. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like a dead and alive street where you don’t see a +soul pass all day,” she said. “Give me a bit of life.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he forced himself to go to Vincent Square. He was sick with apprehension +when he rang the bell. He had an uneasy sense that he was treating Norah badly; +he dreaded reproaches; he knew she had a quick temper, and he hated scenes: +perhaps the best way would be to tell her frankly that Mildred had come back to +him and his love for her was as violent as it had ever been; he was very sorry, +but he had nothing to offer Norah any more. Then he thought of her anguish, for +he knew she loved him; it had flattered him before, and he was immensely +grateful; but now it was horrible. She had not deserved that he should inflict +pain upon her. He asked himself how she would greet him now, and as he walked +up the stairs all possible forms of her behaviour flashed across his mind. He +knocked at the door. He felt that he was pale, and wondered how to conceal his +nervousness. +</p> + +<p> +She was writing away industriously, but she sprang to her feet as he entered. +</p> + +<p> +“I recognised your step,” she cried. “Where have you been +hiding yourself, you naughty boy?” +</p> + +<p> +She came towards him joyfully and put her arms round his neck. She was +delighted to see him. He kissed her, and then, to give himself countenance, +said he was dying for tea. She bustled the fire to make the kettle boil. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been awfully busy,” he said lamely. +</p> + +<p> +She began to chatter in her bright way, telling him of a new commission she had +to provide a novelette for a firm which had not hitherto employed her. She was +to get fifteen guineas for it. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s money from the clouds. I’ll tell you what we’ll +do, we’ll stand ourselves a little jaunt. Let’s go and spend a day +at Oxford, shall we? I’d love to see the colleges.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her to see whether there was any shadow of reproach in her eyes; +but they were as frank and merry as ever: she was overjoyed to see him. His +heart sank. He could not tell her the brutal truth. She made some toast for +him, and cut it into little pieces, and gave it him as though he were a child. +</p> + +<p> +“Is the brute fed?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded, smiling; and she lit a cigarette for him. Then, as she loved to do, +she came and sat on his knees. She was very light. She leaned back in his arms +with a sigh of delicious happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Say something nice to me,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I say?” +</p> + +<p> +“You might by an effort of imagination say that you rather liked +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I do that.” +</p> + +<p> +He had not the heart to tell her then. He would give her peace at all events +for that day, and perhaps he might write to her. That would be easier. He could +not bear to think of her crying. She made him kiss her, and as he kissed her he +thought of Mildred and Mildred’s pale, thin lips. The recollection of +Mildred remained with him all the time, like an incorporated form, but more +substantial than a shadow; and the sight continually distracted his attention. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very quiet today,” Norah said. +</p> + +<p> +Her loquacity was a standing joke between them, and he answered: +</p> + +<p> +“You never let me get a word in, and I’ve got out of the habit of +talking.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re not listening, and that’s bad manners.” +</p> + +<p> +He reddened a little, wondering whether she had some inkling of his secret; he +turned away his eyes uneasily. The weight of her irked him this afternoon, and +he did not want her to touch him. +</p> + +<p> +“My foot’s gone to sleep,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so sorry,” she cried, jumping up. “I shall have to +bant if I can’t break myself of this habit of sitting on +gentlemen’s knees.” +</p> + +<p> +He went through an elaborate form of stamping his foot and walking about. Then +he stood in front of the fire so that she should not resume her position. While +she talked he thought that she was worth ten of Mildred; she amused him much +more and was jollier to talk to; she was cleverer, and she had a much nicer +nature. She was a good, brave, honest little woman; and Mildred, he thought +bitterly, deserved none of these epithets. If he had any sense he would stick +to Norah, she would make him much happier than he would ever be with Mildred: +after all she loved him, and Mildred was only grateful for his help. But when +all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved; and he +yearned for Mildred with his whole soul. He would sooner have ten minutes with +her than a whole afternoon with Norah, he prized one kiss of her cold lips more +than all Norah could give him. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t help myself,” he thought. “I’ve just got +her in my bones.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, +he loved her. He would rather have misery with the one than happiness with the +other. +</p> + +<p> +When he got up to go Norah said casually: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I shall see you tomorrow, shan’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +He knew that he would not be able to come, since he was going to help Mildred +with her moving, but he had not the courage to say so. He made up his mind that +he would send a wire. Mildred saw the rooms in the morning, was satisfied with +them, and after luncheon Philip went up with her to Highbury. She had a trunk +for her clothes and another for the various odds and ends, cushions, +lampshades, photograph frames, with which she had tried to give the apartments +a home-like air; she had two or three large cardboard boxes besides, but in all +there was no more than could be put on the roof of a four-wheeler. As they +drove through Victoria Street Philip sat well back in the cab in case Norah +should happen to be passing. He had not had an opportunity to telegraph and +could not do so from the post office in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, since she +would wonder what he was doing in that neighbourhood; and if he was there he +could have no excuse for not going into the neighbouring square where she +lived. He made up his mind that he had better go in and see her for half an +hour; but the necessity irritated him: he was angry with Norah, because she +forced him to vulgar and degrading shifts. But he was happy to be with Mildred. +It amused him to help her with the unpacking; and he experienced a charming +sense of possession in installing her in these lodgings which he had found and +was paying for. He would not let her exert herself. It was a pleasure to do +things for her, and she had no desire to do what somebody else seemed desirous +to do for her. He unpacked her clothes and put them away. She was not proposing +to go out again, so he got her slippers and took off her boots. It delighted +him to perform menial offices. +</p> + +<p> +“You do spoil me,” she said, running her fingers affectionately +through his hair, while he was on his knees unbuttoning her boots. +</p> + +<p> +He took her hands and kissed them. +</p> + +<p> +“It is nipping to have you here.” +</p> + +<p> +He arranged the cushions and the photograph frames. She had several jars of +green earthenware. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll get you some flowers for them,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He looked round at his work proudly. +</p> + +<p> +“As I’m not going out any more I think I’ll get into a +tea-gown,” she said. “Undo me behind, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +She turned round as unconcernedly as though he were a woman. His sex meant +nothing to her. But his heart was filled with gratitude for the intimacy her +request showed. He undid the hooks and eyes with clumsy fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“That first day I came into the shop I never thought I’d be doing +this for you now,” he said, with a laugh which he forced. +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody must do it,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +She went into the bed-room and slipped into a pale blue tea-gown decorated with +a great deal of cheap lace. Then Philip settled her on a sofa and made tea for +her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I can’t stay and have it with you,” he said +regretfully. “I’ve got a beastly appointment. But I shall be back +in half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +He wondered what he should say if she asked him what the appointment was, but +she showed no curiosity. He had ordered dinner for the two of them when he took +the rooms, and proposed to spend the evening with her quietly. He was in such a +hurry to get back that he took a tram along the Vauxhall Bridge Road. He +thought he had better break the fact to Norah at once that he could not stay +more than a few minutes. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’ve got only just time to say how d’you do,” +he said, as soon as he got into her rooms. “I’m frightfully +busy.” +</p> + +<p> +Her face fell. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +It exasperated him that she should force him to tell lies, and he knew that he +reddened when he answered that there was a demonstration at the hospital which +he was bound to go to. He fancied that she looked as though she did not believe +him, and this irritated him all the more. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I shall have +you all tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her blankly. It was Sunday, and he had been looking forward to +spending the day with Mildred. He told himself that he must do that in common +decency; he could not leave her by herself in a strange house. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, I’m engaged tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +He knew this was the beginning of a scene which he would have given anything to +avoid. The colour on Norah’s cheeks grew brighter. +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ve asked the Gordons to lunch”—they were an +actor and his wife who were touring the provinces and in London for +Sunday—“I told you about it a week ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, I forgot.” He hesitated. “I’m +afraid I can’t possibly come. Isn’t there somebody else you can +get?” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing tomorrow then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t cross-examine me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want to tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t in the least mind telling you, but it’s rather +annoying to be forced to account for all one’s movements.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah suddenly changed. With an effort of self-control she got the better of +her temper, and going up to him took his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t disappoint me tomorrow, Philip, I’ve been looking +forward so much to spending the day with you. The Gordons want to see you, and +we’ll have such a jolly time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d love to if I could.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not very exacting, am I? I don’t often ask you to do +anything that’s a bother. Won’t you get out of your horrid +engagement—just this once?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, I don’t see how I can,” he replied +sullenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what it is,” she said coaxingly. +</p> + +<p> +He had had time to invent something. “Griffiths’ two sisters are up +for the week-end and we’re taking them out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” she said joyfully. “Griffiths can so easily +get another man.” +</p> + +<p> +He wished he had thought of something more urgent than that. It was a clumsy +lie. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m awfully sorry, I can’t—I’ve promised and +I mean to keep my promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you promised me too. Surely I come first.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t persist,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She flared up. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t come because you don’t want to. I don’t know +what you’ve been doing the last few days, you’ve been quite +different.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I’ll have to be going,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t come tomorrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case you needn’t trouble to come again,” she cried, +losing her temper for good. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just as you like,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let me detain you any longer,” she added ironically. +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders and walked out. He was relieved that it had gone no +worse. There had been no tears. As he walked along he congratulated himself on +getting out of the affair so easily. He went into Victoria Street and bought a +few flowers to take in to Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +The little dinner was a great success. Philip had sent in a small pot of +caviare, which he knew she was very fond of, and the landlady brought them up +some cutlets with vegetables and a sweet. Philip had ordered Burgundy, which +was her favourite wine. With the curtains drawn, a bright fire, and one of +Mildred’s shades on the lamp, the room was cosy. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s really just like home,” smiled Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I might be worse off, mightn’t I?” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +When they finished, Philip drew two arm-chairs in front of the fire, and they +sat down. He smoked his pipe comfortably. He felt happy and generous. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you like to do tomorrow?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m going to Tulse Hill. You remember the manageress at the +shop, well, she’s married now, and she’s asked me to go and spend +the day with her. Of course she thinks I’m married too.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart sank. +</p> + +<p> +“But I refused an invitation so that I might spend Sunday with +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought that if she loved him she would say that in that case she would stay +with him. He knew very well that Norah would not have hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you were a silly to do that. I’ve promised to go for three +weeks and more.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how can you go alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I shall say that Emil’s away on business. Her husband’s +in the glove trade, and he’s a very superior fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent, and bitter feelings passed through his heart. She gave him a +sidelong glance. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t grudge me a little pleasure, Philip? You see, it’s +the last time I shall be able to go anywhere for I don’t know how long, +and I had promised.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“No, darling, I want you to have the best time you can. I only want you +to be happy.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little book bound in blue paper lying open, face downwards, on the +sofa, and Philip idly took it up. It was a twopenny novelette, and the author +was Courtenay Paget. That was the name under which Norah wrote. +</p> + +<p> +“I do like his books,” said Mildred. “I read them all. +They’re so refined.” +</p> + +<p> +He remembered what Norah had said of herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I have an immense popularity among kitchen-maids. They think me so +genteel.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXI</h2> + +<p> +Philip, in return for Griffiths’ confidences, had told him the details of +his own complicated amours, and on Sunday morning, after breakfast when they +sat by the fire in their dressing-gowns and smoked, he recounted the scene of +the previous day. Griffiths congratulated him because he had got out of his +difficulties so easily. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the simplest thing in the world to have an affair with a +woman,” he remarked sententiously, “but it’s a devil of a +nuisance to get out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt a little inclined to pat himself on the back for his skill in +managing the business. At all events he was immensely relieved. He thought of +Mildred enjoying herself in Tulse Hill, and he found in himself a real +satisfaction because she was happy. It was an act of self-sacrifice on his part +that he did not grudge her pleasure even though paid for by his own +disappointment, and it filled his heart with a comfortable glow. +</p> + +<p> +But on Monday morning he found on his table a letter from Norah. She wrote: +</p> + +<p> +Dearest, +</p> + +<p> +I’m sorry I was cross on Saturday. Forgive me and come to tea in the +afternoon as usual. I love you. +</p> + +<p> +Your Norah. +</p> + +<p> +His heart sank, and he did not know what to do. He took the note to Griffiths +and showed it to him. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better leave it unanswered,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I can’t,” cried Philip. “I should be miserable if +I thought of her waiting and waiting. You don’t know what it is to be +sick for the postman’s knock. I do, and I can’t expose anybody else +to that torture.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow, one can’t break that sort of affair off without +somebody suffering. You must just set your teeth to that. One thing is, it +doesn’t last very long.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt that Norah had not deserved that he should make her suffer; and +what did Griffiths know about the degrees of anguish she was capable of? He +remembered his own pain when Mildred had told him she was going to be married. +He did not want anyone to experience what he had experienced then. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’re so anxious not to give her pain, go back to her,” +said Griffiths. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t do that.” +</p> + +<p> +He got up and walked up and down the room nervously. He was angry with Norah +because she had not let the matter rest. She must have seen that he had no more +love to give her. They said women were so quick at seeing those things. +</p> + +<p> +“You might help me,” he said to Griffiths. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow, don’t make such a fuss about it. People do get +over these things, you know. She probably isn’t so wrapped up in you as +you think, either. One’s always rather apt to exaggerate the passion +one’s inspired other people with.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and looked at Philip with amusement. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, there’s only one thing you can do. Write to her, and +tell her the thing’s over. Put it so that there can be no mistake about +it. It’ll hurt her, but it’ll hurt her less if you do the thing +brutally than if you try half-hearted ways.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip sat down and wrote the following letter: +</p> + +<p> +My dear Norah, +</p> + +<p> +I am sorry to make you unhappy, but I think we had better let things remain +where we left them on Saturday. I don’t think there’s any use in +letting these things drag on when they’ve ceased to be amusing. You told +me to go and I went. I do not propose to come back. Good-bye.<br/> +Philip Carey. +</p> + +<p> +He showed the letter to Griffiths and asked him what he thought of it. +Griffiths read it and looked at Philip with twinkling eyes. He did not say what +he felt. +</p> + +<p> +“I think that’ll do the trick,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip went out and posted it. He passed an uncomfortable morning, for he +imagined with great detail what Norah would feel when she received his letter. +He tortured himself with the thought of her tears. But at the same time he was +relieved. Imagined grief was more easy to bear than grief seen, and he was free +now to love Mildred with all his soul. His heart leaped at the thought of going +to see her that afternoon, when his day’s work at the hospital was over. +</p> + +<p> +When as usual he went back to his rooms to tidy himself, he had no sooner put +the latch-key in his door than he heard a voice behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“May I come in? I’ve been waiting for you for half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Norah. He felt himself blush to the roots of his hair. She spoke gaily. +There was no trace of resentment in her voice and nothing to indicate that +there was a rupture between them. He felt himself cornered. He was sick with +fear, but he did his best to smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, do,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He opened the door, and she preceded him into his sitting-room. He was nervous +and, to give himself countenance, offered her a cigarette and lit one for +himself. She looked at him brightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you write me such a horrid letter, you naughty boy? If I’d +taken it seriously it would have made me perfectly wretched.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was meant seriously,” he answered gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be so silly. I lost my temper the other day, and I wrote and +apologised. You weren’t satisfied, so I’ve come here to apologise +again. After all, you’re your own master and I have no claims upon you. I +don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.” +</p> + +<p> +She got up from the chair in which she was sitting and went towards him +impulsively, with outstretched hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s make friends again, Philip. I’m so sorry if I offended +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He could not prevent her from taking his hands, but he could not look at her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She let herself down on the floor by his side and clasped his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, don’t be silly. I’m quick-tempered too and I can +understand that I hurt you, but it’s so stupid to sulk over it. +What’s the good of making us both unhappy? It’s been so jolly, our +friendship.” She passed her fingers slowly over his hand. “I love +you, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +He got up, disengaging himself from her, and went to the other side of the +room. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, I can’t do anything. The whole +thing’s over.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say you don’t love me any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid so.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were just looking for an opportunity to throw me over and you took +that one?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer. She looked at him steadily for a time which seemed +intolerable. She was sitting on the floor where he had left her, leaning +against the arm-chair. She began to cry quite silently, without trying to hide +her face, and the large tears rolled down her cheeks one after the other. She +did not sob. It was horribly painful to see her. Philip turned away. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry to hurt you. It’s not my fault if I +don’t love you.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer. She merely sat there, as though she were overwhelmed, and +the tears flowed down her cheeks. It would have been easier to bear if she had +reproached him. He had thought her temper would get the better of her, and he +was prepared for that. At the back of his mind was a feeling that a real +quarrel, in which each said to the other cruel things, would in some way be a +justification of his behaviour. The time passed. At last he grew frightened by +her silent crying; he went into his bed-room and got a glass of water; he +leaned over her. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you drink a little? It’ll relieve you.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her lips listlessly to the glass and drank two or three mouthfuls. Then +in an exhausted whisper she asked him for a handkerchief. She dried her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I knew you never loved me as much as I loved you,” she +moaned. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid that’s always the case,” he said. +“There’s always one who loves and one who lets himself be +loved.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought of Mildred, and a bitter pain traversed his heart. Norah did not +answer for a long time. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d been so miserably unhappy, and my life was so hateful,” +she said at last. +</p> + +<p> +She did not speak to him, but to herself. He had never heard her before +complain of the life she had led with her husband or of her poverty. He had +always admired the bold front she displayed to the world. +</p> + +<p> +“And then you came along and you were so good to me. And I admired you +because you were clever and it was so heavenly to have someone I could put my +trust in. I loved you. I never thought it could come to an end. And without any +fault of mine at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Her tears began to flow again, but now she was more mistress of herself, and +she hid her face in Philip’s handkerchief. She tried hard to control +herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me some more water,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She wiped her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry to make such a fool of myself. I was so +unprepared.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, Norah. I want you to know that I’m very +grateful for all you’ve done for me.” +</p> + +<p> +He wondered what it was she saw in him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s always the same,” she sighed, “if you want +men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them +decently they make you suffer for it.” +</p> + +<p> +She got up from the floor and said she must go. She gave Philip a long, steady +look. Then she sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so inexplicable. What does it all mean?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip took a sudden determination. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’d better tell you, I don’t want you to think too +badly of me, I want you to see that I can’t help myself. Mildred’s +come back.” +</p> + +<p> +The colour came to her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you tell me at once? I deserved that surely.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was afraid to.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at herself in the glass and set her hat straight. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you call me a cab,” she said. “I don’t feel I can +walk.” +</p> + +<p> +He went to the door and stopped a passing hansom; but when she followed him +into the street he was startled to see how white she was. There was a heaviness +in her movements as though she had suddenly grown older. She looked so ill that +he had not the heart to let her go alone. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll drive back with you if you don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, and he got into the cab. They drove along in silence over +the bridge, through shabby streets in which children, with shrill cries, played +in the road. When they arrived at her door she did not immediately get out. It +seemed as though she could not summon enough strength to her legs to move. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll forgive me, Norah,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She turned her eyes towards him, and he saw that they were bright again with +tears, but she forced a smile to her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor fellow, you’re quite worried about me. You mustn’t +bother. I don’t blame you. I shall get over it all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Lightly and quickly she stroked his face to show him that she bore no +ill-feeling, the gesture was scarcely more than suggested; then she jumped out +of the cab and let herself into her house. +</p> + +<p> +Philip paid the hansom and walked to Mildred’s lodgings. There was a +curious heaviness in his heart. He was inclined to reproach himself. But why? +He did not know what else he could have done. Passing a fruiterer’s, he +remembered that Mildred was fond of grapes. He was so grateful that he could +show his love for her by recollecting every whim she had. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXII</h2> + +<p> +For the next three months Philip went every day to see Mildred. He took his +books with him and after tea worked, while Mildred lay on the sofa reading +novels. Sometimes he would look up and watch her for a minute. A happy smile +crossed his lips. She would feel his eyes upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t waste your time looking at me, silly. Go on with your +work,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Tyrant,” he answered gaily. +</p> + +<p> +He put aside his book when the landlady came in to lay the cloth for dinner, +and in his high spirits he exchanged chaff with her. She was a little cockney, +of middle age, with an amusing humour and a quick tongue. Mildred had become +great friends with her and had given her an elaborate but mendacious account of +the circumstances which had brought her to the pass she was in. The +good-hearted little woman was touched and found no trouble too great to make +Mildred comfortable. Mildred’s sense of propriety had suggested that +Philip should pass himself off as her brother. They dined together, and Philip +was delighted when he had ordered something which tempted Mildred’s +capricious appetite. It enchanted him to see her sitting opposite him, and +every now and then from sheer joy he took her hand and pressed it. After dinner +she sat in the arm-chair by the fire, and he settled himself down on the floor +beside her, leaning against her knees, and smoked. Often they did not talk at +all, and sometimes Philip noticed that she had fallen into a doze. He dared not +move then in case he woke her, and he sat very quietly, looking lazily into the +fire and enjoying his happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Had a nice little nap?” he smiled, when she woke. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve not been sleeping,” she answered. “I only just +closed my eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +She would never acknowledge that she had been asleep. She had a phlegmatic +temperament, and her condition did not seriously inconvenience her. She took a +lot of trouble about her health and accepted the advice of anyone who chose to +offer it. She went for a ‘constitutional’ every morning that it was +fine and remained out a definite time. When it was not too cold she sat in St. +James’ Park. But the rest of the day she spent quite happily on her sofa, +reading one novel after another or chatting with the landlady; she had an +inexhaustible interest in gossip, and told Philip with abundant detail the +history of the landlady, of the lodgers on the drawing-room floor, and of the +people who lived in the next house on either side. Now and then she was seized +with panic; she poured out her fears to Philip about the pain of the +confinement and was in terror lest she should die; she gave him a full account +of the confinements of the landlady and of the lady on the drawing-room floor +(Mildred did not know her; “I’m one to keep myself to +myself,” she said, “I’m not one to go about with +anybody.”) and she narrated details with a queer mixture of horror and +gusto; but for the most part she looked forward to the occurrence with +equanimity. +</p> + +<p> +“After all, I’m not the first one to have a baby, am I? And the +doctor says I shan’t have any trouble. You see, it isn’t as if I +wasn’t well made.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Owen, the owner of the house she was going to when her time came, had +recommended a doctor, and Mildred saw him once a week. He was to charge fifteen +guineas. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I could have got it done cheaper, but Mrs. Owen strongly +recommended him, and I thought it wasn’t worth while to spoil the ship +for a coat of tar.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you feel happy and comfortable I don’t mind a bit about the +expense,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She accepted all that Philip did for her as if it were the most natural thing +in the world, and on his side he loved to spend money on her: each five-pound +note he gave her caused him a little thrill of happiness and pride; he gave her +a good many, for she was not economical. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know where the money goes to,” she said herself, +“it seems to slip through my fingers like water.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter,” said Philip. “I’m so glad to +be able to do anything I can for you.” +</p> + +<p> +She could not sew well and so did not make the necessary things for the baby; +she told Philip it was much cheaper in the end to buy them. Philip had lately +sold one of the mortgages in which his money had been put; and now, with five +hundred pounds in the bank waiting to be invested in something that could be +more easily realised, he felt himself uncommonly well-to-do. They talked often +of the future. Philip was anxious that Mildred should keep the child with her, +but she refused: she had her living to earn, and it would be more easy to do +this if she had not also to look after a baby. Her plan was to get back into +one of the shops of the company for which she had worked before, and the child +could be put with some decent woman in the country. +</p> + +<p> +“I can find someone who’ll look after it well for seven and +sixpence a week. It’ll be better for the baby and better for me.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed callous to Philip, but when he tried to reason with her she pretended +to think he was concerned with the expense. +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t worry about that,” she said. “I +shan’t ask YOU to pay for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I don’t care how much I pay.” +</p> + +<p> +At the bottom of her heart was the hope that the child would be still-born. She +did no more than hint it, but Philip saw that the thought was there. He was +shocked at first; and then, reasoning with himself, he was obliged to confess +that for all concerned such an event was to be desired. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all very fine to say this and that,” Mildred remarked +querulously, “but it’s jolly difficult for a girl to earn her +living by herself; it doesn’t make it any easier when she’s got a +baby.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fortunately you’ve got me to fall back on,” smiled Philip, +taking her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been good to me, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what rot!” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t say I didn’t offer anything in return for what +you’ve done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens, I don’t want a return. If I’ve done anything +for you, I’ve done it because I love you. You owe me nothing. I +don’t want you to do anything unless you love me.” +</p> + +<p> +He was a little horrified by her feeling that her body was a commodity which +she could deliver indifferently as an acknowledgment for services rendered. +</p> + +<p> +“But I do want to, Philip. You’ve been so good to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it won’t hurt for waiting. When you’re all right again +we’ll go for our little honeymoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are naughty,” she said, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +Mildred expected to be confined early in March, and as soon as she was well +enough she was to go to the seaside for a fortnight: that would give Philip a +chance to work without interruption for his examination; after that came the +Easter holidays, and they had arranged to go to Paris together. Philip talked +endlessly of the things they would do. Paris was delightful then. They would +take a room in a little hotel he knew in the Latin Quarter, and they would eat +in all sorts of charming little restaurants; they would go to the play, and he +would take her to music halls. It would amuse her to meet his friends. He had +talked to her about Cronshaw, she would see him; and there was Lawson, he had +gone to Paris for a couple of months; and they would go to the Bal Bullier; +there were excursions; they would make trips to Versailles, Chartres, +Fontainebleau. +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll cost a lot of money,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, damn the expense. Think how I’ve been looking forward to it. +Don’t you know what it means to me? I’ve never loved anyone but +you. I never shall.” +</p> + +<p> +She listened to his enthusiasm with smiling eyes. He thought he saw in them a +new tenderness, and he was grateful to her. She was much gentler than she used +to be. There was in her no longer the superciliousness which had irritated him. +She was so accustomed to him now that she took no pains to keep up before him +any pretences. She no longer troubled to do her hair with the old elaboration, +but just tied it in a knot; and she left off the vast fringe which she +generally wore: the more careless style suited her. Her face was so thin that +it made her eyes seem very large; there were heavy lines under them, and the +pallor of her cheeks made their colour more profound. She had a wistful look +which was infinitely pathetic. There seemed to Philip to be in her something of +the Madonna. He wished they could continue in that same way always. He was +happier than he had ever been in his life. +</p> + +<p> +He used to leave her at ten o’clock every night, for she liked to go to +bed early, and he was obliged to put in another couple of hours’ work to +make up for the lost evening. He generally brushed her hair for her before he +went. He had made a ritual of the kisses he gave her when he bade her +good-night; first he kissed the palms of her hands (how thin the fingers were, +the nails were beautiful, for she spent much time in manicuring them,) then he +kissed her closed eyes, first the right one and then the left, and at last he +kissed her lips. He went home with a heart overflowing with love. He longed for +an opportunity to gratify the desire for self-sacrifice which consumed him. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the time came for her to move to the nursing-home where she was to be +confined. Philip was then able to visit her only in the afternoons. Mildred +changed her story and represented herself as the wife of a soldier who had gone +to India to join his regiment, and Philip was introduced to the mistress of the +establishment as her brother-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +“I have to be rather careful what I say,” she told him, “as +there’s another lady here whose husband’s in the Indian +Civil.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t let that disturb me if I were you,” said Philip. +“I’m convinced that her husband and yours went out on the same +boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“What boat?” she asked innocently. +</p> + +<p> +“The Flying Dutchman.” +</p> + +<p> +Mildred was safely delivered of a daughter, and when Philip was allowed to see +her the child was lying by her side. Mildred was very weak, but relieved that +everything was over. She showed him the baby, and herself looked at it +curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a funny-looking little thing, isn’t it? I can’t +believe it’s mine.” +</p> + +<p> +It was red and wrinkled and odd. Philip smiled when he looked at it. He did not +quite know what to say; and it embarrassed him because the nurse who owned the +house was standing by his side; and he felt by the way she was looking at him +that, disbelieving Mildred’s complicated story, she thought he was the +father. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to call her?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t make up my mind if I shall call her Madeleine or +Cecilia.” +</p> + +<p> +The nurse left them alone for a few minutes, and Philip bent down and kissed +Mildred on the mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad it’s all over happily, darling.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her thin arms round his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“You have been a brick to me, Phil dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now I feel that you’re mine at last. I’ve waited so long for +you, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +They heard the nurse at the door, and Philip hurriedly got up. The nurse +entered. There was a slight smile on her lips. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXIII</h2> + +<p> +Three weeks later Philip saw Mildred and her baby off to Brighton. She had made +a quick recovery and looked better than he had ever seen her. She was going to +a boarding-house where she had spent a couple of weekends with Emil Miller, and +had written to say that her husband was obliged to go to Germany on business +and she was coming down with her baby. She got pleasure out of the stories she +invented, and she showed a certain fertility of invention in the working out of +the details. Mildred proposed to find in Brighton some woman who would be +willing to take charge of the baby. Philip was startled at the callousness with +which she insisted on getting rid of it so soon, but she argued with common +sense that the poor child had much better be put somewhere before it grew used +to her. Philip had expected the maternal instinct to make itself felt when she +had had the baby two or three weeks and had counted on this to help him +persuade her to keep it; but nothing of the sort occurred. Mildred was not +unkind to her baby; she did all that was necessary; it amused her sometimes, +and she talked about it a good deal; but at heart she was indifferent to it. +She could not look upon it as part of herself. She fancied it resembled its +father already. She was continually wondering how she would manage when it grew +older; and she was exasperated with herself for being such a fool as to have it +at all. +</p> + +<p> +“If I’d only known then all I do now,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She laughed at Philip, because he was anxious about its welfare. +</p> + +<p> +“You couldn’t make more fuss if you was the father,” she +said. “I’d like to see Emil getting into such a stew about +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s mind was full of the stories he had heard of baby-farming and +the ghouls who ill-treat the wretched children that selfish, cruel parents have +put in their charge. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be so silly,” said Mildred. “That’s when +you give a woman a sum down to look after a baby. But when you’re going +to pay so much a week it’s to their interest to look after it +well.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip insisted that Mildred should place the child with people who had no +children of their own and would promise to take no other. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t haggle about the price,” he said. “I’d +rather pay half a guinea a week than run any risk of the kid being starved or +beaten.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a funny old thing, Philip,” she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +To him there was something very touching in the child’s helplessness. It +was small, ugly, and querulous. Its birth had been looked forward to with shame +and anguish. Nobody wanted it. It was dependent on him, a stranger, for food, +shelter, and clothes to cover its nakedness. +</p> + +<p> +As the train started he kissed Mildred. He would have kissed the baby too, but +he was afraid she would laugh at him. +</p> + +<p> +“You will write to me, darling, won’t you? And I shall look forward +to your coming back with oh! such impatience.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mind you get through your exam.” +</p> + +<p> +He had been working for it industriously, and now with only ten days before him +he made a final effort. He was very anxious to pass, first to save himself time +and expense, for money had been slipping through his fingers during the last +four months with incredible speed; and then because this examination marked the +end of the drudgery: after that the student had to do with medicine, midwifery, +and surgery, the interest of which was more vivid than the anatomy and +physiology with which he had been hitherto concerned. Philip looked forward +with interest to the rest of the curriculum. Nor did he want to have to confess +to Mildred that he had failed: though the examination was difficult and the +majority of candidates were ploughed at the first attempt, he knew that she +would think less well of him if he did not succeed; she had a peculiarly +humiliating way of showing what she thought. +</p> + +<p> +Mildred sent him a postcard to announce her safe arrival, and he snatched half +an hour every day to write a long letter to her. He had always a certain +shyness in expressing himself by word of mouth, but he found he could tell her, +pen in hand, all sorts of things which it would have made him feel ridiculous +to say. Profiting by the discovery he poured out to her his whole heart. He had +never been able to tell her before how his adoration filled every part of him +so that all his actions, all his thoughts, were touched with it. He wrote to +her of the future, the happiness that lay before him, and the gratitude which +he owed her. He asked himself (he had often asked himself before but had never +put it into words) what it was in her that filled him with such extravagant +delight; he did not know; he knew only that when she was with him he was happy, +and when she was away from him the world was on a sudden cold and gray; he knew +only that when he thought of her his heart seemed to grow big in his body so +that it was difficult to breathe (as if it pressed against his lungs) and it +throbbed, so that the delight of her presence was almost pain; his knees shook, +and he felt strangely weak as though, not having eaten, he were tremulous from +want of food. He looked forward eagerly to her answers. He did not expect her +to write often, for he knew that letter-writing came difficultly to her; and he +was quite content with the clumsy little note that arrived in reply to four of +his. She spoke of the boarding-house in which she had taken a room, of the +weather and the baby, told him she had been for a walk on the front with a +lady-friend whom she had met in the boarding-house and who had taken such a +fancy to baby, she was going to the theatre on Saturday night, and Brighton was +filling up. It touched Philip because it was so matter-of-fact. The crabbed +style, the formality of the matter, gave him a queer desire to laugh and to +take her in his arms and kiss her. +</p> + +<p> +He went into the examination with happy confidence. There was nothing in either +of the papers that gave him trouble. He knew that he had done well, and though +the second part of the examination was viva voce and he was more nervous, he +managed to answer the questions adequately. He sent a triumphant telegram to +Mildred when the result was announced. +</p> + +<p> +When he got back to his rooms Philip found a letter from her, saying that she +thought it would be better for her to stay another week in Brighton. She had +found a woman who would be glad to take the baby for seven shillings a week, +but she wanted to make inquiries about her, and she was herself benefiting so +much by the sea-air that she was sure a few days more would do her no end of +good. She hated asking Philip for money, but would he send some by return, as +she had had to buy herself a new hat, she couldn’t go about with her +lady-friend always in the same hat, and her lady-friend was so dressy. Philip +had a moment of bitter disappointment. It took away all his pleasure at getting +through his examination. +</p> + +<p> +“If she loved me one quarter as much as I love her she couldn’t +bear to stay away a day longer than necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +He put the thought away from him quickly; it was pure selfishness; of course +her health was more important than anything else. But he had nothing to do now; +he might spend the week with her in Brighton, and they could be together all +day. His heart leaped at the thought. It would be amusing to appear before +Mildred suddenly with the information that he had taken a room in the +boarding-house. He looked out trains. But he paused. He was not certain that +she would be pleased to see him; she had made friends in Brighton; he was +quiet, and she liked boisterous joviality; he realised that she amused herself +more with other people than with him. It would torture him if he felt for an +instant that he was in the way. He was afraid to risk it. He dared not even +write and suggest that, with nothing to keep him in town, he would like to +spend the week where he could see her every day. She knew he had nothing to do; +if she wanted him to come she would have asked him to. He dared not risk the +anguish he would suffer if he proposed to come and she made excuses to prevent +him. +</p> + +<p> +He wrote to her next day, sent her a five-pound note, and at the end of his +letter said that if she were very nice and cared to see him for the week-end he +would be glad to run down; but she was by no means to alter any plans she had +made. He awaited her answer with impatience. In it she said that if she had +only known before she could have arranged it, but she had promised to go to a +music-hall on the Saturday night; besides, it would make the people at the +boarding-house talk if he stayed there. Why did he not come on Sunday morning +and spend the day? They could lunch at the Metropole, and she would take him +afterwards to see the very superior lady-like person who was going to take the +baby. +</p> + +<p> +Sunday. He blessed the day because it was fine. As the train approached +Brighton the sun poured through the carriage window. Mildred was waiting for +him on the platform. +</p> + +<p> +“How jolly of you to come and meet me!” he cried, as he seized her +hands. +</p> + +<p> +“You expected me, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I hoped you would. I say, how well you’re looking.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s done me a rare lot of good, but I think I’m wise to +stay here as long as I can. And there are a very nice class of people at the +boarding-house. I wanted cheering up after seeing nobody all these months. It +was dull sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked very smart in her new hat, a large black straw with a great many +inexpensive flowers on it; and round her neck floated a long boa of imitation +swansdown. She was still very thin, and she stooped a little when she walked +(she had always done that,) but her eyes did not seem so large; and though she +never had any colour, her skin had lost the earthy look it had. They walked +down to the sea. Philip, remembering he had not walked with her for months, +grew suddenly conscious of his limp and walked stiffly in the attempt to +conceal it. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you glad to see me?” he asked, love dancing madly in his +heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am. You needn’t ask that.” +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Griffiths sends you his love.” +</p> + +<p> +“What cheek!” +</p> + +<p> +He had talked to her a great deal of Griffiths. He had told her how flirtatious +he was and had amused her often with the narration of some adventure which +Griffiths under the seal of secrecy had imparted to him. Mildred had listened, +with some pretence of disgust sometimes, but generally with curiosity; and +Philip, admiringly, had enlarged upon his friend’s good looks and charm. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you’ll like him just as much as I do. He’s so +jolly and amusing, and he’s such an awfully good sort.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip told her how, when they were perfect strangers, Griffiths had nursed him +through an illness; and in the telling Griffiths’ self-sacrifice lost +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t help liking him,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like good-looking men,” said Mildred. +“They’re too conceited for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wants to know you. I’ve talked to him about you an awful +lot.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you said?” asked Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had no one but Griffiths to talk to of his love for Mildred, and little +by little had told him the whole story of his connection with her. He described +her to him fifty times. He dwelt amorously on every detail of her appearance, +and Griffiths knew exactly how her thin hands were shaped and how white her +face was, and he laughed at Philip when he talked of the charm of her pale, +thin lips. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, I’m glad I don’t take things so badly as +that,” he said. “Life wouldn’t be worth living.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled. Griffiths did not know the delight of being so madly in love +that it was like meat and wine and the air one breathed and whatever else was +essential to existence. Griffiths knew that Philip had looked after the girl +while she was having her baby and was now going away with her. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must say you’ve deserved to get something,” he +remarked. “It must have cost you a pretty penny. It’s lucky you can +afford it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” said Philip. “But what do I care!” +</p> + +<p> +Since it was early for luncheon, Philip and Mildred sat in one of the shelters +on the parade, sunning themselves, and watched the people pass. There were the +Brighton shop-boys who walked in twos and threes, swinging their canes, and +there were the Brighton shop-girls who tripped along in giggling bunches. They +could tell the people who had come down from London for the day; the keen air +gave a fillip to their weariness. There were many Jews, stout ladies in tight +satin dresses and diamonds, little corpulent men with a gesticulative manner. +There were middle-aged gentlemen spending a week-end in one of the large +hotels, carefully dressed; and they walked industriously after too substantial +a breakfast to give themselves an appetite for too substantial a luncheon: they +exchanged the time of day with friends and talked of Dr. Brighton or +London-by-the-Sea. Here and there a well-known actor passed, elaborately +unconscious of the attention he excited: sometimes he wore patent leather +boots, a coat with an astrakhan collar, and carried a silver-knobbed stick; and +sometimes, looking as though he had come from a day’s shooting, he +strolled in knickerbockers, and ulster of Harris tweed, and a tweed hat on the +back of his head. The sun shone on the blue sea, and the blue sea was trim and +neat. +</p> + +<p> +After luncheon they went to Hove to see the woman who was to take charge of the +baby. She lived in a small house in a back street, but it was clean and tidy. +Her name was Mrs. Harding. She was an elderly, stout person, with gray hair and +a red, fleshy face. She looked motherly in her cap, and Philip thought she +seemed kind. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you find it an awful nuisance to look after a baby?” +he asked her. +</p> + +<p> +She explained that her husband was a curate, a good deal older than herself, +who had difficulty in getting permanent work since vicars wanted young men to +assist them; he earned a little now and then by doing locums when someone took +a holiday or fell ill, and a charitable institution gave them a small pension; +but her life was lonely, it would be something to do to look after a child, and +the few shillings a week paid for it would help her to keep things going. She +promised that it should be well fed. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite the lady, isn’t she?” said Mildred, when they went +away. +</p> + +<p> +They went back to have tea at the Metropole. Mildred liked the crowd and the +band. Philip was tired of talking, and he watched her face as she looked with +keen eyes at the dresses of the women who came in. She had a peculiar sharpness +for reckoning up what things cost, and now and then she leaned over to him and +whispered the result of her meditations. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you see that aigrette there? That cost every bit of seven +guineas.” +</p> + +<p> +Or: “Look at that ermine, Philip. That’s rabbit, that +is—that’s not ermine.” She laughed triumphantly. +“I’d know it a mile off.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled happily. He was glad to see her pleasure, and the ingenuousness +of her conversation amused and touched him. The band played sentimental music. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner they walked down to the station, and Philip took her arm. He told +her what arrangements he had made for their journey to France. She was to come +up to London at the end of the week, but she told him that she could not go +away till the Saturday of the week after that. He had already engaged a room in +a hotel in Paris. He was looking forward eagerly to taking the tickets. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t mind going second-class, will you? We mustn’t be +extravagant, and it’ll be all the better if we can do ourselves pretty +well when we get there.” +</p> + +<p> +He had talked to her a hundred times of the Quarter. They would wander through +its pleasant old streets, and they would sit idly in the charming gardens of +the Luxembourg. If the weather was fine perhaps, when they had had enough of +Paris, they might go to Fontainebleau. The trees would be just bursting into +leaf. The green of the forest in spring was more beautiful than anything he +knew; it was like a song, and it was like the happy pain of love. Mildred +listened quietly. He turned to her and tried to look deep into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You do want to come, don’t you?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I do,” she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know how I’m looking forward to it. I don’t +know how I shall get through the next days. I’m so afraid something will +happen to prevent it. It maddens me sometimes that I can’t tell you how +much I love you. And at last, at last…” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off. They reached the station, but they had dawdled on the way, and +Philip had barely time to say good-night. He kissed her quickly and ran towards +the wicket as fast as he could. She stood where he left her. He was strangely +grotesque when he ran. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXIV</h2> + +<p> +The following Saturday Mildred returned, and that evening Philip kept her to +himself. He took seats for the play, and they drank champagne at dinner. It was +her first gaiety in London for so long that she enjoyed everything ingenuously. +She cuddled up to Philip when they drove from the theatre to the room he had +taken for her in Pimlico. +</p> + +<p> +“I really believe you’re quite glad to see me,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, but gently pressed his hand. Demonstrations of affection +were so rare with her that Philip was enchanted. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve asked Griffiths to dine with us tomorrow,” he told her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m glad you’ve done that. I wanted to meet him.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no place of entertainment to take her to on Sunday night, and Philip +was afraid she would be bored if she were alone with him all day. Griffiths was +amusing; he would help them to get through the evening; and Philip was so fond +of them both that he wanted them to know and to like one another. He left +Mildred with the words: +</p> + +<p> +“Only six days more.” +</p> + +<p> +They had arranged to dine in the gallery at Romano’s on Sunday, because +the dinner was excellent and looked as though it cost a good deal more than it +did. Philip and Mildred arrived first and had to wait some time for Griffiths. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s an unpunctual devil,” said Philip. “He’s +probably making love to one of his numerous flames.” +</p> + +<p> +But presently he appeared. He was a handsome creature, tall and thin; his head +was placed well on the body, it gave him a conquering air which was attractive; +and his curly hair, his bold, friendly blue eyes, his red mouth, were charming. +Philip saw Mildred look at him with appreciation, and he felt a curious +satisfaction. Griffiths greeted them with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard a great deal about you,” he said to Mildred, as +he took her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so much as I’ve heard about you,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor so bad,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he been blackening my character?” +</p> + +<p> +Griffiths laughed, and Philip saw that Mildred noticed how white and regular +his teeth were and how pleasant his smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to feel like old friends,” said Philip. +“I’ve talked so much about you to one another.” +</p> + +<p> +Griffiths was in the best possible humour, for, having at length passed his +final examination, he was qualified, and he had just been appointed +house-surgeon at a hospital in the North of London. He was taking up his duties +at the beginning of May and meanwhile was going home for a holiday; this was +his last week in town, and he was determined to get as much enjoyment into it +as he could. He began to talk the gay nonsense which Philip admired because he +could not copy it. There was nothing much in what he said, but his vivacity +gave it point. There flowed from him a force of life which affected everyone +who knew him; it was almost as sensible as bodily warmth. Mildred was more +lively than Philip had ever known her, and he was delighted to see that his +little party was a success. She was amusing herself enormously. She laughed +louder and louder. She quite forgot the genteel reserve which had become second +nature to her. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Griffiths said: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, it’s dreadfully difficult for me to call you Mrs. Miller. +Philip never calls you anything but Mildred.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay she won’t scratch your eyes out if you call her that +too,” laughed Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Then she must call me Harry.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip sat silent while they chattered away and thought how good it was to see +people happy. Now and then Griffiths teased him a little, kindly, because he +was always so serious. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe he’s quite fond of you, Philip,” smiled Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +“He isn’t a bad old thing,” answered Griffiths, and taking +Philip’s hand he shook it gaily. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed an added charm in Griffiths that he liked Philip. They were all sober +people, and the wine they had drunk went to their heads. Griffiths became more +talkative and so boisterous that Philip, amused, had to beg him to be quiet. He +had a gift for story-telling, and his adventures lost nothing of their romance +and their laughter in his narration. He played in all of them a gallant, +humorous part. Mildred, her eyes shining with excitement, urged him on. He +poured out anecdote after anecdote. When the lights began to be turned out she +was astonished. +</p> + +<p> +“My word, the evening has gone quickly. I thought it wasn’t more +than half past nine.” +</p> + +<p> +They got up to go and when she said good-bye, she added: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m coming to have tea at Philip’s room tomorrow. You might +look in if you can.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +On the way back to Pimlico Mildred talked of nothing but Griffiths. She was +taken with his good looks, his well-cut clothes, his voice, his gaiety. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you like him,” said Philip. “D’you remember +you were rather sniffy about meeting him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it’s so nice of him to be so fond of you, Philip. He is a +nice friend for you to have.” +</p> + +<p> +She put up her face to Philip for him to kiss her. It was a thing she did +rarely. +</p> + +<p> +“I have enjoyed myself this evening, Philip. Thank you so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be so absurd,” he laughed, touched by her appreciation +so that he felt the moisture come to his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +She opened her door and just before she went in, turned again to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell Harry I’m madly in love with him,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he laughed. “Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Next day, when they were having tea, Griffiths came in. He sank lazily into an +arm-chair. There was something strangely sensual in the slow movements of his +large limbs. Philip remained silent, while the others chattered away, but he +was enjoying himself. He admired them both so much that it seemed natural +enough for them to admire one another. He did not care if Griffiths absorbed +Mildred’s attention, he would have her to himself during the evening: he +had something of the attitude of a loving husband, confident in his +wife’s affection, who looks on with amusement while she flirts harmlessly +with a stranger. But at half past seven he looked at his watch and said: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s about time we went out to dinner, Mildred.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a moment’s pause, and Griffiths seemed to be considering. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll be getting along,” he said at last. “I +didn’t know it was so late.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you doing anything tonight?” asked Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +There was another silence. Philip felt slightly irritated. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll just go and have a wash,” he said, and to Mildred he +added: “Would you like to wash your hands?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you come and dine with us?” she said to Griffiths. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Philip and saw him staring at him sombrely. +</p> + +<p> +“I dined with you last night,” he laughed. “I should be in +the way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” insisted Mildred. “Make him +come, Philip. He won’t be in the way, will he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him come by all means if he’d like to.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, then,” said Griffiths promptly. “I’ll just +go upstairs and tidy myself.” +</p> + +<p> +The moment he left the room Philip turned to Mildred angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why on earth did you ask him to dine with us?” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t help myself. It would have looked so funny to say +nothing when he said he wasn’t doing anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what rot! And why the hell did you ask him if he was doing +anything?” +</p> + +<p> +Mildred’s pale lips tightened a little. +</p> + +<p> +“I want a little amusement sometimes. I get tired always being alone with +you.” +</p> + +<p> +They heard Griffiths coming heavily down the stairs, and Philip went into his +bed-room to wash. They dined in the neighbourhood in an Italian restaurant. +Philip was cross and silent, but he quickly realised that he was showing to +disadvantage in comparison with Griffiths, and he forced himself to hide his +annoyance. He drank a good deal of wine to destroy the pain that was gnawing at +his heart, and he set himself to talk. Mildred, as though remorseful for what +she had said, did all she could to make herself pleasant to him. She was kindly +and affectionate. Presently Philip began to think he had been a fool to +surrender to a feeling of jealousy. After dinner when they got into a hansom to +drive to a music-hall Mildred, sitting between the two men, of her own accord +gave him her hand. His anger vanished. Suddenly, he knew not how, he grew +conscious that Griffiths was holding her other hand. The pain seized him again +violently, it was a real physical pain, and he asked himself, panic-stricken, +what he might have asked himself before, whether Mildred and Griffiths were in +love with one another. He could not see anything of the performance on account +of the mist of suspicion, anger, dismay, and wretchedness which seemed to be +before his eyes; but he forced himself to conceal the fact that anything was +the matter; he went on talking and laughing. Then a strange desire to torture +himself seized him, and he got up, saying he wanted to go and drink something. +Mildred and Griffiths had never been alone together for a moment. He wanted to +leave them by themselves. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come too,” said Griffiths. “I’ve got rather +a thirst on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nonsense, you stay and talk to Mildred.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not know why he said that. He was throwing them together now to make +the pain he suffered more intolerable. He did not go to the bar, but up into +the balcony, from where he could watch them and not be seen. They had ceased to +look at the stage and were smiling into one another’s eyes. Griffiths was +talking with his usual happy fluency and Mildred seemed to hang on his lips. +Philip’s head began to ache frightfully. He stood there motionless. He +knew he would be in the way if he went back. They were enjoying themselves +without him, and he was suffering, suffering. Time passed, and now he had an +extraordinary shyness about rejoining them. He knew they had not thought of him +at all, and he reflected bitterly that he had paid for the dinner and their +seats in the music-hall. What a fool they were making of him! He was hot with +shame. He could see how happy they were without him. His instinct was to leave +them to themselves and go home, but he had not his hat and coat, and it would +necessitate endless explanations. He went back. He felt a shadow of annoyance +in Mildred’s eyes when she saw him, and his heart sank. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been a devil of a time,” said Griffiths, with a smile +of welcome. +</p> + +<p> +“I met some men I knew. I’ve been talking to them, and I +couldn’t get away. I thought you’d be all right together.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been enjoying myself thoroughly,” said Griffiths. +“I don’t know about Mildred.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a little laugh of happy complacency. There was a vulgar sound in the +ring of it that horrified Philip. He suggested that they should go. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” said Griffiths, “we’ll both drive you +home.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip suspected that she had suggested that arrangement so that she might not +be left alone with him. In the cab he did not take her hand nor did she offer +it, and he knew all the time that she was holding Griffiths’. His chief +thought was that it was all so horribly vulgar. As they drove along he asked +himself what plans they had made to meet without his knowledge, he cursed +himself for having left them alone, he had actually gone out of his way to +enable them to arrange things. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s keep the cab,” said Philip, when they reached the +house in which Mildred was lodging. “I’m too tired to walk +home.” +</p> + +<p> +On the way back Griffiths talked gaily and seemed indifferent to the fact that +Philip answered in monosyllables. Philip felt he must notice that something was +the matter. Philip’s silence at last grew too significant to struggle +against, and Griffiths, suddenly nervous, ceased talking. Philip wanted to say +something, but he was so shy he could hardly bring himself to, and yet the time +was passing and the opportunity would be lost. It was best to get at the truth +at once. He forced himself to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you in love with Mildred?” he asked suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“I?” Griffiths laughed. “Is that what you’ve been so +funny about this evening? Of course not, my dear old man.” +</p> + +<p> +He tried to slip his hand through Philip’s arm, but Philip drew himself +away. He knew Griffiths was lying. He could not bring himself to force +Griffiths to tell him that he had not been holding the girl’s hand. He +suddenly felt very weak and broken. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter to you, Harry,” he said. +“You’ve got so many women—don’t take her away from me. +It means my whole life. I’ve been so awfully wretched.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice broke, and he could not prevent the sob that was torn from him. He +was horribly ashamed of himself. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear old boy, you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. +I’m far too fond of you for that. I was only playing the fool. If +I’d known you were going to take it like that I’d have been more +careful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that true?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care a twopenny damn for her. I give you my word of +honour.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip gave a sigh of relief. The cab stopped at their door. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXV</h2> + +<p> +Next day Philip was in a good temper. He was very anxious not to bore Mildred +with too much of his society, and so had arranged that he should not see her +till dinner-time. She was ready when he fetched her, and he chaffed her for her +unwonted punctuality. She was wearing a new dress he had given her. He remarked +on its smartness. +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll have to go back and be altered,” she said. “The +skirt hangs all wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to make the dressmaker hurry up if you want to take it +to Paris with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll be ready in time for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only three more whole days. We’ll go over by the eleven +o’clock, shall we?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you like.” +</p> + +<p> +He would have her for nearly a month entirely to himself. His eyes rested on +her with hungry adoration. He was able to laugh a little at his own passion. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what it is I see in you,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a nice thing to say,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +Her body was so thin that one could almost see her skeleton. Her chest was as +flat as a boy’s. Her mouth, with its narrow pale lips, was ugly, and her +skin was faintly green. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall give you Blaud’s Pills in quantities when we’re +away,” said Philip, laughing. “I’m going to bring you back +fat and rosy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to get fat,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She did not speak of Griffiths, and presently while they were dining Philip +half in malice, for he felt sure of himself and his power over her, said: +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me you were having a great flirtation with Harry last +night?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you I was in love with him,” she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad to know that he’s not in love with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How d’you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I asked him.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated a moment, looking at Philip, and a curious gleam came into her +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to read a letter I had from him this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +She handed him an envelope and Philip recognised Griffiths’ bold, legible +writing. There were eight pages. It was well written, frank and charming; it +was the letter of a man who was used to making love to women. He told Mildred +that he loved her passionately, he had fallen in love with her the first moment +he saw her; he did not want to love her, for he knew how fond Philip was of +her, but he could not help himself. Philip was such a dear, and he was very +much ashamed of himself, but it was not his fault, he was just carried away. He +paid her delightful compliments. Finally he thanked her for consenting to lunch +with him next day and said he was dreadfully impatient to see her. Philip +noticed that the letter was dated the night before; Griffiths must have written +it after leaving Philip, and had taken the trouble to go out and post it when +Philip thought he was in bed. +</p> + +<p> +He read it with a sickening palpitation of his heart, but gave no outward sign +of surprise. He handed it back to Mildred with a smile, calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you enjoy your lunch?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather,” she said emphatically. +</p> + +<p> +He felt that his hands were trembling, so he put them under the table. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t take Griffiths too seriously. He’s just a +butterfly, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +She took the letter and looked at it again. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t help it either,” she said, in a voice which she +tried to make nonchalant. “I don’t know what’s come over +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a little awkward for me, isn’t it?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a quick look. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re taking it pretty calmly, I must say.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you expect me to do? Do you want me to tear out my hair in +handfuls?” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew you’d be angry with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“The funny thing is, I’m not at all. I ought to have known this +would happen. I was a fool to bring you together. I know perfectly well that +he’s got every advantage over me; he’s much jollier, and he’s +very handsome, he’s more amusing, he can talk to you about the things +that interest you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean by that. If I’m not clever I +can’t help it, but I’m not the fool you think I am, not by a long +way, I can tell you. You’re a bit too superior for me, my young +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you want to quarrel with me?” he asked mildly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, but I don’t see why you should treat me as if I was I +don’t know what.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I just wanted to +talk things over quietly. We don’t want to make a mess of them if we can +help it. I saw you were attracted by him and it seemed to me very natural. The +only thing that really hurts me is that he should have encouraged you. He knew +how awfully keen I was on you. I think it’s rather shabby of him to have +written that letter to you five minutes after he told me he didn’t care +twopence about you.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you think you’re going to make me like him any the less by +saying nasty things about him, you’re mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent for a moment. He did not know what words he could use to make +her see his point of view. He wanted to speak coolly and deliberately, but he +was in such a turmoil of emotion that he could not clear his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not worth while sacrificing everything for an infatuation +that you know can’t last. After all, he doesn’t care for anyone +more than ten days, and you’re rather cold; that sort of thing +doesn’t mean very much to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what you think.” +</p> + +<p> +She made it more difficult for him by adopting a cantankerous tone. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’re in love with him you can’t help it. I’ll +just bear it as best I can. We get on very well together, you and I, and +I’ve not behaved badly to you, have I? I’ve always known that +you’re not in love with me, but you like me all right, and when we get +over to Paris you’ll forget about Griffiths. If you make up your mind to +put him out of your thoughts you won’t find it so hard as all that, and +I’ve deserved that you should do something for me.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, and they went on eating their dinner. When the silence grew +oppressive Philip began to talk of indifferent things. He pretended not to +notice that Mildred was inattentive. Her answers were perfunctory, and she +volunteered no remarks of her own. At last she interrupted abruptly what he was +saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, I’m afraid I shan’t be able to go away on Saturday. +The doctor says I oughtn’t to.” +</p> + +<p> +He knew this was not true, but he answered: +</p> + +<p> +“When will you be able to come away?” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him, saw that his face was white and rigid, and looked nervously +away. She was at that moment a little afraid of him. +</p> + +<p> +“I may as well tell you and have done with it, I can’t come away +with you at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were driving at that. It’s too late to change your +mind now. I’ve got the tickets and everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“You said you didn’t wish me to go unless I wanted it too, and I +don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to have any more tricks +played with me. You must come.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like you very much, Philip, as a friend. But I can’t bear to +think of anything else. I don’t like you that way. I couldn’t, +Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were quite willing to a week ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was different then.” +</p> + +<p> +“You hadn’t met Griffiths?” +</p> + +<p> +“You said yourself I couldn’t help it if I’m in love with +him.” +</p> + +<p> +Her face was set into a sulky look, and she kept her eyes fixed on her plate. +Philip was white with rage. He would have liked to hit her in the face with his +clenched fist, and in fancy he saw how she would look with a black eye. There +were two lads of eighteen dining at a table near them, and now and then they +looked at Mildred; he wondered if they envied him dining with a pretty girl; +perhaps they were wishing they stood in his shoes. It was Mildred who broke the +silence. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good of our going away together? I’d be thinking +of him all the time. It wouldn’t be much fun for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my business,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +She thought over all his reply implicated, and she reddened. +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s just beastly.” +</p> + +<p> +“What of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were a gentleman in every sense of the word.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +His reply entertained him, and he laughed as he said it. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake don’t laugh,” she cried. “I +can’t come away with you, Philip. I’m awfully sorry. I know I +haven’t behaved well to you, but one can’t force themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you forgotten that when you were in trouble I did everything for +you? I planked out the money to keep you till your baby was born, I paid for +your doctor and everything, I paid for you to go to Brighton, and I’m +paying for the keep of your baby, I’m paying for your clothes, I’m +paying for every stitch you’ve got on now.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you was a gentleman you wouldn’t throw what you’ve done +for me in my face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, for goodness’ sake, shut up. What d’you suppose I care +if I’m a gentleman or not? If I were a gentleman I shouldn’t waste +my time with a vulgar slut like you. I don’t care a damn if you like me +or not. I’m sick of being made a blasted fool of. You’re jolly well +coming to Paris with me on Saturday or you can take the consequences.” +</p> + +<p> +Her cheeks were red with anger, and when she answered her voice had the hard +commonness which she concealed generally by a genteel enunciation. +</p> + +<p> +“I never liked you, not from the beginning, but you forced yourself on +me, I always hated it when you kissed me. I wouldn’t let you touch me now +not if I was starving.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip tried to swallow the food on his plate, but the muscles of his throat +refused to act. He gulped down something to drink and lit a cigarette. He was +trembling in every part. He did not speak. He waited for her to move, but she +sat in silence, staring at the white tablecloth. If they had been alone he +would have flung his arms round her and kissed her passionately; he fancied the +throwing back of her long white throat as he pressed upon her mouth with his +lips. They passed an hour without speaking, and at last Philip thought the +waiter began to stare at them curiously. He called for the bill. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we go?” he said then, in an even tone. +</p> + +<p> +She did not reply, but gathered together her bag and her gloves. She put on her +coat. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you seeing Griffiths again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tomorrow,” she answered indifferently. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better talk it over with him.” +</p> + +<p> +She opened her bag mechanically and saw a piece of paper in it. She took it +out. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s the bill for this dress,” she said hesitatingly. +</p> + +<p> +“What of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I promised I’d give her the money tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Does that mean you won’t pay for it after having told me I could +get it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It does.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll ask Harry,” she said, flushing quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll be glad to help you. He owes me seven pounds at the moment, +and he pawned his microscope last week, because he was so broke.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t think you can frighten me by that. I’m quite +capable of earning my own living.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the best thing you can do. I don’t propose to give you +a farthing more.” +</p> + +<p> +She thought of her rent due on Saturday and the baby’s keep, but did not +say anything. They left the restaurant, and in the street Philip asked her: +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I call a cab for you? I’m going to take a little +stroll.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t got any money. I had to pay a bill this +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“It won’t hurt you to walk. If you want to see me tomorrow I shall +be in about tea-time.” +</p> + +<p> +He took off his hat and sauntered away. He looked round in a moment and saw +that she was standing helplessly where he had left her, looking at the traffic. +He went back and with a laugh pressed a coin into her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s two bob for you to get home with.” +</p> + +<p> +Before she could speak he hurried away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXVI</h2> + +<p> +Next day, in the afternoon, Philip sat in his room and wondered whether Mildred +would come. He had slept badly. He had spent the morning in the club of the +Medical School, reading one newspaper after another. It was the vacation and +few students he knew were in London, but he found one or two people to talk to, +he played a game of chess, and so wore out the tedious hours. After luncheon he +felt so tired, his head was aching so, that he went back to his lodgings and +lay down; he tried to read a novel. He had not seen Griffiths. He was not in +when Philip returned the night before; he heard him come back, but he did not +as usual look into Philip’s room to see if he was asleep; and in the +morning Philip heard him go out early. It was clear that he wanted to avoid +him. Suddenly there was a light tap at his door. Philip sprang to his feet and +opened it. Mildred stood on the threshold. She did not move. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He closed the door after her. She sat down. She hesitated to begin. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for giving me that two shillings last night,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a faint smile. It reminded Philip of the timid, ingratiating look +of a puppy that has been beaten for naughtiness and wants to reconcile himself +with his master. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been lunching with Harry,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you still want me to go away with you on Saturday, Philip, I’ll +come.” +</p> + +<p> +A quick thrill of triumph shot through his heart, but it was a sensation that +only lasted an instant; it was followed by a suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Because of the money?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Partly,” she answered simply. “Harry can’t do +anything. He owes five weeks here, and he owes you seven pounds, and his +tailor’s pressing him for money. He’d pawn anything he could, but +he’s pawned everything already. I had a job to put the woman off about my +new dress, and on Saturday there’s the book at my lodgings, and I +can’t get work in five minutes. It always means waiting some little time +till there’s a vacancy.” +</p> + +<p> +She said all this in an even, querulous tone, as though she were recounting the +injustices of fate, which had to be borne as part of the natural order of +things. Philip did not answer. He knew what she told him well enough. +</p> + +<p> +“You said partly,” he observed at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Harry says you’ve been a brick to both of us. You’ve +been a real good friend to him, he says, and you’ve done for me what +p’raps no other man would have done. We must do the straight thing, he +says. And he said what you said about him, that he’s fickle by nature, +he’s not like you, and I should be a fool to throw you away for him. He +won’t last and you will, he says so himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you WANT to come away with me?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her, and the corners of his mouth turned down in an expression of +misery. He had triumphed indeed, and he was going to have his way. He gave a +little laugh of derision at his own humiliation. She looked at him quickly, but +did not speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve looked forward with all my soul to going away with you, and I +thought at last, after all that wretchedness, I was going to be happy…” +</p> + +<p> +He did not finish what he was going to say. And then on a sudden, without +warning, Mildred broke into a storm of tears. She was sitting in the chair in +which Norah had sat and wept, and like her she hid her face on the back of it, +towards the side where there was a little bump formed by the sagging in the +middle, where the head had rested. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not lucky with women,” thought Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Her thin body was shaken with sobs. Philip had never seen a woman cry with such +an utter abandonment. It was horribly painful, and his heart was torn. Without +realising what he did, he went up to her and put his arms round her; she did +not resist, but in her wretchedness surrendered herself to his comforting. He +whispered to her little words of solace. He scarcely knew what he was saying, +he bent over her and kissed her repeatedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you awfully unhappy?” he said at last. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I was dead,” she moaned. “I wish I’d died when +the baby come.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hat was in her way, and Philip took it off for her. He placed her head more +comfortably in the chair, and then he went and sat down at the table and looked +at her. +</p> + +<p> +“It is awful, love, isn’t it?” he said. “Fancy anyone +wanting to be in love.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently the violence of her sobbing diminished and she sat in the chair, +exhausted, with her head thrown back and her arms hanging by her side. She had +the grotesque look of one of those painters’ dummies used to hang +draperies on. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know you loved him so much as all that,” said +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He understood Griffiths’ love well enough, for he put himself in +Griffiths’ place and saw with his eyes, touched with his hands; he was +able to think himself in Griffiths’ body, and he kissed her with his +lips, smiled at her with his smiling blue eyes. It was her emotion that +surprised him. He had never thought her capable of passion, and this was +passion: there was no mistaking it. Something seemed to give way in his heart; +it really felt to him as though something were breaking, and he felt strangely +weak. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to make you unhappy. You needn’t come away with +me if you don’t want to. I’ll give you the money all the +same.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I said I’d come, and I’ll come.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good, if you’re sick with love for him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s the word. I’m sick with love. I know it +won’t last, just as well as he does, but just now…” +</p> + +<p> +She paused and shut her eyes as though she were going to faint. A strange idea +came to Philip, and he spoke it as it came, without stopping to think it out. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you go away with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I? You know we haven’t got the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“You?” +</p> + +<p> +She sat up and looked at him. Her eyes began to shine, and the colour came into +her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps the best thing would be to get it over, and then you’d +come back to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Now that he had made the suggestion he was sick with anguish, and yet the +torture of it gave him a strange, subtle sensation. She stared at him with open +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how could we, on your money? Harry wouldn’t think of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, he would, if you persuaded him.” +</p> + +<p> +Her objections made him insist, and yet he wanted her with all his heart to +refuse vehemently. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you a fiver, and you can go away from Saturday to +Monday. You could easily do that. On Monday he’s going home till he takes +up his appointment at the North London.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip, do you mean that?” she cried, clasping her hands. +“If you could only let us go—I would love you so much afterwards, +I’d do anything for you. I’m sure I shall get over it if +you’ll only do that. Would you really give us the money?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She was entirely changed now. She began to laugh. He could see that she was +insanely happy. She got up and knelt down by Philip’s side, taking his +hands. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a brick, Philip. You’re the best fellow I’ve ever +known. Won’t you be angry with me afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, smiling, but with what agony in his heart! +</p> + +<p> +“May I go and tell Harry now? And can I say to him that you don’t +mind? He won’t consent unless you promise it doesn’t matter. Oh, +you don’t know how I love him! And afterwards I’ll do anything you +like. I’ll come over to Paris with you or anywhere on Monday.” +</p> + +<p> +She got up and put on her hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to ask him if he’ll take me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Already?” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you want me to stay? I’ll stay if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat down, but he gave a little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it doesn’t matter, you’d better go at once. +There’s only one thing: I can’t bear to see Griffiths just now, it +would hurt me too awfully. Say I have no ill-feeling towards him or anything +like that, but ask him to keep out of my way.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” She sprang up and put on her gloves. “I’ll +let you know what he says.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better dine with me tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well.” +</p> + +<p> +She put up her face for him to kiss her, and when he pressed his lips to hers +she threw her arms round his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a darling, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +She sent him a note a couple of hours later to say that she had a headache and +could not dine with him. Philip had almost expected it. He knew that she was +dining with Griffiths. He was horribly jealous, but the sudden passion which +had seized the pair of them seemed like something that had come from the +outside, as though a god had visited them with it, and he felt himself +helpless. It seemed so natural that they should love one another. He saw all +the advantages that Griffiths had over himself and confessed that in +Mildred’s place he would have done as Mildred did. What hurt him most was +Griffiths’ treachery; they had been such good friends, and Griffiths knew +how passionately devoted he was to Mildred: he might have spared him. +</p> + +<p> +He did not see Mildred again till Friday; he was sick for a sight of her by +then; but when she came and he realised that he had gone out of her thoughts +entirely, for they were engrossed in Griffiths, he suddenly hated her. He saw +now why she and Griffiths loved one another, Griffiths was stupid, oh so +stupid! he had known that all along, but had shut his eyes to it, stupid and +empty-headed: that charm of his concealed an utter selfishness; he was willing +to sacrifice anyone to his appetites. And how inane was the life he led, +lounging about bars and drinking in music halls, wandering from one light amour +to another! He never read a book, he was blind to everything that was not +frivolous and vulgar; he had never a thought that was fine: the word most +common on his lips was smart; that was his highest praise for man or woman. +Smart! It was no wonder he pleased Mildred. They suited one another. +</p> + +<p> +Philip talked to Mildred of things that mattered to neither of them. He knew +she wanted to speak of Griffiths, but he gave her no opportunity. He did not +refer to the fact that two evenings before she had put off dining with him on a +trivial excuse. He was casual with her, trying to make her think he was +suddenly grown indifferent; and he exercised peculiar skill in saying little +things which he knew would wound her; but which were so indefinite, so +delicately cruel, that she could not take exception to them. At last she got +up. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I must be going off now,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay you’ve got a lot to do,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +She held out her hand, he took it, said good-bye, and opened the door for her. +He knew what she wanted to speak about, and he knew also that his cold, +ironical air intimidated her. Often his shyness made him seem so frigid that +unintentionally he frightened people, and, having discovered this, he was able +when occasion arose to assume the same manner. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t forgotten what you promised?” she said at last, +as he held open the door. +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“About the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much d’you want?” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke with an icy deliberation which made his words peculiarly offensive. +Mildred flushed. He knew she hated him at that moment, and he wondered at the +self-control by which she prevented herself from flying out at him. He wanted +to make her suffer. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the dress and the book tomorrow. That’s all. Harry +won’t come, so we shan’t want money for that.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart gave a great thud against his ribs, and he let the door +handle go. The door swung to. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“He says we couldn’t, not on your money.” +</p> + +<p> +A devil seized Philip, a devil of self-torture which was always lurking within +him, and, though with all his soul he wished that Griffiths and Mildred should +not go away together, he could not help himself; he set himself to persuade +Griffiths through her. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why not, if I’m willing,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I told him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought if he really wanted to go he wouldn’t +hesitate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s not that, he wants to all right. He’d go at once if +he had the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he’s squeamish about it I’ll give YOU the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said you’d lend it if he liked, and we’d pay it back as +soon as we could.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather a change for you going on your knees to get a man to +take you away for a week-end.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is rather, isn’t it?” she said, with a shameless little +laugh. It sent a cold shudder down Philip’s spine. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do then?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. He’s going home tomorrow. He must.” +</p> + +<p> +That would be Philip’s salvation. With Griffiths out of the way he could +get Mildred back. She knew no one in London, she would be thrown on to his +society, and when they were alone together he could soon make her forget this +infatuation. If he said nothing more he was safe. But he had a fiendish desire +to break down their scruples, he wanted to know how abominably they could +behave towards him; if he tempted them a little more they would yield, and he +took a fierce joy at the thought of their dishonour. Though every word he spoke +tortured him, he found in the torture a horrible delight. +</p> + +<p> +“It looks as if it were now or never.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I told him,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +There was a passionate note in her voice which struck Philip. He was biting his +nails in his nervousness. +</p> + +<p> +“Where were you thinking of going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, to Oxford. He was at the ’Varsity there, you know. He said +he’d show me the colleges.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip remembered that once he had suggested going to Oxford for the day, and +she had expressed firmly the boredom she felt at the thought of sights. +</p> + +<p> +“And it looks as if you’d have fine weather. It ought to be very +jolly there just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve done all I could to persuade him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you have another try?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I say you want us to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think you must go as far as that,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She paused for a minute or two, looking at him. Philip forced himself to look +at her in a friendly way. He hated her, he despised her, he loved her with all +his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll go and see if he +can’t arrange it. And then, if he says yes, I’ll come and fetch the +money tomorrow. When shall you be in?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come back here after luncheon and wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you the money for your dress and your room now.” +</p> + +<p> +He went to his desk and took out what money he had. The dress was six guineas; +there was besides her rent and her food, and the baby’s keep for a week. +He gave her eight pounds ten. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks very much,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She left him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXVII</h2> + +<p> +After lunching in the basement of the Medical School Philip went back to his +rooms. It was Saturday afternoon, and the landlady was cleaning the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mr. Griffiths in?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. He went away this morning, soon after you went out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t he coming back?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so, sir. He’s taken his luggage.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip wondered what this could mean. He took a book and began to read. It was +Burton’s Journey to Meccah, which he had just got out of the Westminster +Public Library; and he read the first page, but could make no sense of it, for +his mind was elsewhere; he was listening all the time for a ring at the bell. +He dared not hope that Griffiths had gone away already, without Mildred, to his +home in Cumberland. Mildred would be coming presently for the money. He set his +teeth and read on; he tried desperately to concentrate his attention; the +sentences etched themselves in his brain by the force of his effort, but they +were distorted by the agony he was enduring. He wished with all his heart that +he had not made the horrible proposition to give them money; but now that he +had made it he lacked the strength to go back on it, not on Mildred’s +account, but on his own. There was a morbid obstinacy in him which forced him +to do the thing he had determined. He discovered that the three pages he had +read had made no impression on him at all; and he went back and started from +the beginning: he found himself reading one sentence over and over again; and +now it weaved itself in with his thoughts, horribly, like some formula in a +nightmare. One thing he could do was to go out and keep away till midnight; +they could not go then; and he saw them calling at the house every hour to ask +if he was in. He enjoyed the thought of their disappointment. He repeated that +sentence to himself mechanically. But he could not do that. Let them come and +take the money, and he would know then to what depths of infamy it was possible +for men to descend. He could not read any more now. He simply could not see the +words. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes, and, numb with misery, +waited for Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you see Mrs. Miller, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Show her in.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip pulled himself together to receive her without any sign of what he was +feeling. He had an impulse to throw himself on his knees and seize her hands +and beg her not to go; but he knew there was no way of moving her; she would +tell Griffiths what he had said and how he acted. He was ashamed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how about the little jaunt?” he said gaily. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re going. Harry’s outside. I told him you didn’t +want to see him, so he’s kept out of your way. But he wants to know if he +can come in just for a minute to say good-bye to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t see him,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He could see she did not care if he saw Griffiths or not. Now that she was +there he wanted her to go quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, here’s the fiver. I’d like you to go now.” +</p> + +<p> +She took it and thanked him. She turned to leave the room. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you coming back?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, on Monday. Harry must go home then.” +</p> + +<p> +He knew what he was going to say was humiliating, but he was broken down with +jealousy and desire. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I shall see you, shan’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +He could not help the note of appeal in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course. I’ll let you know the moment I’m back.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook hands with her. Through the curtains he watched her jump into a +four-wheeler that stood at the door. It rolled away. Then he threw himself on +his bed and hid his face in his hands. He felt tears coming to his eyes, and he +was angry with himself; he clenched his hands and screwed up his body to +prevent them; but he could not; and great painful sobs were forced from him. +</p> + +<p> +He got up at last, exhausted and ashamed, and washed his face. He mixed himself +a strong whiskey and soda. It made him feel a little better. Then he caught +sight of the tickets to Paris, which were on the chimney-piece, and, seizing +them, with an impulse of rage he flung them in the fire. He knew he could have +got the money back on them, but it relieved him to destroy them. Then he went +out in search of someone to be with. The club was empty. He felt he would go +mad unless he found someone to talk to; but Lawson was abroad; he went on to +Hayward’s rooms: the maid who opened the door told him that he had gone +down to Brighton for the week-end. Then Philip went to a gallery and found it +was just closing. He did not know what to do. He was distracted. And he thought +of Griffiths and Mildred going to Oxford, sitting opposite one another in the +train, happy. He went back to his rooms, but they filled him with horror, he +had been so wretched in them; he tried once more to read Burton’s book, +but, as he read, he told himself again and again what a fool he had been; it +was he who had made the suggestion that they should go away, he had offered the +money, he had forced it upon them; he might have known what would happen when +he introduced Griffiths to Mildred; his own vehement passion was enough to +arouse the other’s desire. By this time they had reached Oxford. They +would put up in one of the lodging-houses in John Street; Philip had never been +to Oxford, but Griffiths had talked to him about it so much that he knew +exactly where they would go; and they would dine at the Clarendon: Griffiths +had been in the habit of dining there when he went on the spree. Philip got +himself something to eat in a restaurant near Charing Cross; he had made up his +mind to go to a play, and afterwards he fought his way into the pit of a +theatre at which one of Oscar Wilde’s pieces was being performed. He +wondered if Mildred and Griffiths would go to a play that evening: they must +kill the evening somehow; they were too stupid, both of them to content +themselves with conversation: he got a fierce delight in reminding himself of +the vulgarity of their minds which suited them so exactly to one another. He +watched the play with an abstracted mind, trying to give himself gaiety by +drinking whiskey in each interval; he was unused to alcohol, and it affected +him quickly, but his drunkenness was savage and morose. When the play was over +he had another drink. He could not go to bed, he knew he would not sleep, and +he dreaded the pictures which his vivid imagination would place before him. He +tried not to think of them. He knew he had drunk too much. Now he was seized +with a desire to do horrible, sordid things; he wanted to roll himself in +gutters; his whole being yearned for beastliness; he wanted to grovel. +</p> + +<p> +He walked up Piccadilly, dragging his club-foot, sombrely drunk, with rage and +misery clawing at his heart. He was stopped by a painted harlot, who put her +hand on his arm; he pushed her violently away with brutal words. He walked on a +few steps and then stopped. She would do as well as another. He was sorry he +had spoken so roughly to her. He went up to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to hell,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I merely wanted to ask if you’d do me the honour of supping with +me tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with amazement, and hesitated for a while. She saw he was +drunk. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He was amused that she should use a phrase he had heard so often on +Mildred’s lips. He took her to one of the restaurants he had been in the +habit of going to with Mildred. He noticed as they walked along that she looked +down at his limb. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a club-foot,” he said. “Have you any +objection?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a cure,” she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +When he got home his bones were aching, and in his head there was a hammering +that made him nearly scream. He took another whiskey and soda to steady +himself, and going to bed sank into a dreamless sleep till mid-day. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXVIII</h2> + +<p> +At last Monday came, and Philip thought his long torture was over. Looking out +the trains he found that the latest by which Griffiths could reach home that +night left Oxford soon after one, and he supposed that Mildred would take one +which started a few minutes later to bring her to London. His desire was to go +and meet it, but he thought Mildred would like to be left alone for a day; +perhaps she would drop him a line in the evening to say she was back, and if +not he would call at her lodgings next morning: his spirit was cowed. He felt a +bitter hatred for Griffiths, but for Mildred, notwithstanding all that had +passed, only a heart-rending desire. He was glad now that Hayward was not in +London on Saturday afternoon when, distraught, he went in search of human +comfort: he could not have prevented himself from telling him everything, and +Hayward would have been astonished at his weakness. He would despise him, and +perhaps be shocked or disgusted that he could envisage the possibility of +making Mildred his mistress after she had given herself to another man. What +did he care if it was shocking or disgusting? He was ready for any compromise, +prepared for more degrading humiliations still, if he could only gratify his +desire. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the evening his steps took him against his will to the house in which +she lived, and he looked up at her window. It was dark. He did not venture to +ask if she was back. He was confident in her promise. But there was no letter +from her in the morning, and, when about mid-day he called, the maid told him +she had not arrived. He could not understand it. He knew that Griffiths would +have been obliged to go home the day before, for he was to be best man at a +wedding, and Mildred had no money. He turned over in his mind every possible +thing that might have happened. He went again in the afternoon and left a note, +asking her to dine with him that evening as calmly as though the events of the +last fortnight had not happened. He mentioned the place and time at which they +were to meet, and hoping against hope kept the appointment: though he waited +for an hour she did not come. On Wednesday morning he was ashamed to ask at the +house and sent a messenger-boy with a letter and instructions to bring back a +reply; but in an hour the boy came back with Philip’s letter unopened and +the answer that the lady had not returned from the country. Philip was beside +himself. The last deception was more than he could bear. He repeated to himself +over and over again that he loathed Mildred, and, ascribing to Griffiths this +new disappointment, he hated him so much that he knew what was the delight of +murder: he walked about considering what a joy it would be to come upon him on +a dark night and stick a knife into his throat, just about the carotid artery, +and leave him to die in the street like a dog. Philip was out of his senses +with grief and rage. He did not like whiskey, but he drank to stupefy himself. +He went to bed drunk on the Tuesday and on the Wednesday night. +</p> + +<p> +On Thursday morning he got up very late and dragged himself, blear-eyed and +sallow, into his sitting-room to see if there were any letters. A curious +feeling shot through his heart when he recognised the handwriting of Griffiths. +</p> + +<p> +Dear old man: +</p> + +<p> +I hardly know how to write to you and yet I feel I must write. I hope +you’re not awfully angry with me. I know I oughtn’t to have gone +away with Milly, but I simply couldn’t help myself. She simply carried me +off my feet and I would have done anything to get her. When she told me you had +offered us the money to go I simply couldn’t resist. And now it’s +all over I’m awfully ashamed of myself and I wish I hadn’t been +such a fool. I wish you’d write and say you’re not angry with me, +and I want you to let me come and see you. I was awfully hurt at your telling +Milly you didn’t want to see me. Do write me a line, there’s a good +chap, and tell me you forgive me. It’ll ease my conscience. I thought you +wouldn’t mind or you wouldn’t have offered the money. But I know I +oughtn’t to have taken it. I came home on Monday and Milly wanted to stay +a couple of days at Oxford by herself. She’s going back to London on +Wednesday, so by the time you receive this letter you will have seen her and I +hope everything will go off all right. Do write and say you forgive me. Please +write at once.<br/> +Yours ever,<br/> +Harry. +</p> + +<p> +Philip tore up the letter furiously. He did not mean to answer it. He despised +Griffiths for his apologies, he had no patience with his prickings of +conscience: one could do a dastardly thing if one chose, but it was +contemptible to regret it afterwards. He thought the letter cowardly and +hypocritical. He was disgusted at its sentimentality. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be very easy if you could do a beastly thing,” he +muttered to himself, “and then say you were sorry, and that put it all +right again.” +</p> + +<p> +He hoped with all his heart he would have the chance one day to do Griffiths a +bad turn. +</p> + +<p> +But at all events he knew that Mildred was in town. He dressed hurriedly, not +waiting to shave, drank a cup of tea, and took a cab to her rooms. The cab +seemed to crawl. He was painfully anxious to see her, and unconsciously he +uttered a prayer to the God he did not believe in to make her receive him +kindly. He only wanted to forget. With beating heart he rang the bell. He +forgot all his suffering in the passionate desire to enfold her once more in +his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mrs. Miller in?” he asked joyously. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s gone,” the maid answered. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“She came about an hour ago and took away her things.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment he did not know what to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you give her my letter? Did she say where she was going?” +</p> + +<p> +Then he understood that Mildred had deceived him again. She was not coming back +to him. He made an effort to save his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I daresay I shall hear from her. She may have sent a letter to +another address.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned away and went back hopeless to his rooms. He might have known that +she would do this; she had never cared for him, she had made a fool of him from +the beginning; she had no pity, she had no kindness, she had no charity. The +only thing was to accept the inevitable. The pain he was suffering was +horrible, he would sooner be dead than endure it; and the thought came to him +that it would be better to finish with the whole thing: he might throw himself +in the river or put his neck on a railway line; but he had no sooner set the +thought into words than he rebelled against it. His reason told him that he +would get over his unhappiness in time; if he tried with all his might he could +forget her; and it would be grotesque to kill himself on account of a vulgar +slut. He had only one life, and it was madness to fling it away. He FELT that +he would never overcome his passion, but he KNEW that after all it was only a +matter of time. +</p> + +<p> +He would not stay in London. There everything reminded him of his unhappiness. +He telegraphed to his uncle that he was coming to Blackstable, and, hurrying to +pack, took the first train he could. He wanted to get away from the sordid +rooms in which he had endured so much suffering. He wanted to breathe clean +air. He was disgusted with himself. He felt that he was a little mad. +</p> + +<p> +Since he was grown up Philip had been given the best spare room at the +vicarage. It was a corner-room and in front of one window was an old tree which +blocked the view, but from the other you saw, beyond the garden and the +vicarage field, broad meadows. Philip remembered the wall-paper from his +earliest years. On the walls were quaint water colours of the early Victorian +period by a friend of the Vicar’s youth. They had a faded charm. The +dressing-table was surrounded by stiff muslin. There was an old tall-boy to put +your clothes in. Philip gave a sigh of pleasure; he had never realised that all +those things meant anything to him at all. At the vicarage life went on as it +had always done. No piece of furniture had been moved from one place to +another; the Vicar ate the same things, said the same things, went for the same +walk every day; he had grown a little fatter, a little more silent, a little +more narrow. He had become accustomed to living without his wife and missed her +very little. He bickered still with Josiah Graves. Philip went to see the +churchwarden. He was a little thinner, a little whiter, a little more austere; +he was autocratic still and still disapproved of candles on the altar. The +shops had still a pleasant quaintness; and Philip stood in front of that in +which things useful to seamen were sold, sea-boots and tarpaulins and tackle, +and remembered that he had felt there in his childhood the thrill of the sea +and the adventurous magic of the unknown. +</p> + +<p> +He could not help his heart beating at each double knock of the postman in case +there might be a letter from Mildred sent on by his landlady in London; but he +knew that there would be none. Now that he could think it out more calmly he +understood that in trying to force Mildred to love him he had been attempting +the impossible. He did not know what it was that passed from a man to a woman, +from a woman to a man, and made one of them a slave: it was convenient to call +it the sexual instinct; but if it was no more than that, he did not understand +why it should occasion so vehement an attraction to one person rather than +another. It was irresistible: the mind could not battle with it; friendship, +gratitude, interest, had no power beside it. Because he had not attracted +Mildred sexually, nothing that he did had any effect upon her. The idea +revolted him; it made human nature beastly; and he felt suddenly that the +hearts of men were full of dark places. Because Mildred was indifferent to him +he had thought her sexless; her anaemic appearance and thin lips, the body with +its narrow hips and flat chest, the languor of her manner, carried out his +supposition; and yet she was capable of sudden passions which made her willing +to risk everything to gratify them. He had never understood her adventure with +Emil Miller: it had seemed so unlike her, and she had never been able to +explain it; but now that he had seen her with Griffiths he knew that just the +same thing had happened then: she had been carried off her feet by an +ungovernable desire. He tried to think out what those two men had which so +strangely attracted her. They both had a vulgar facetiousness which tickled her +simple sense of humour, and a certain coarseness of nature; but what took her +perhaps was the blatant sexuality which was their most marked characteristic. +She had a genteel refinement which shuddered at the facts of life, she looked +upon the bodily functions as indecent, she had all sorts of euphemisms for +common objects, she always chose an elaborate word as more becoming than a +simple one: the brutality of these men was like a whip on her thin white +shoulders, and she shuddered with voluptuous pain. +</p> + +<p> +One thing Philip had made up his mind about. He would not go back to the +lodgings in which he had suffered. He wrote to his landlady and gave her +notice. He wanted to have his own things about him. He determined to take +unfurnished rooms: it would be pleasant and cheaper; and this was an urgent +consideration, for during the last year and a half he had spent nearly seven +hundred pounds. He must make up for it now by the most rigid economy. Now and +then he thought of the future with panic; he had been a fool to spend so much +money on Mildred; but he knew that if it were to come again he would act in the +same way. It amused him sometimes to consider that his friends, because he had +a face which did not express his feelings very vividly and a rather slow way of +moving, looked upon him as strong-minded, deliberate, and cool. They thought +him reasonable and praised his common sense; but he knew that his placid +expression was no more than a mask, assumed unconsciously, which acted like the +protective colouring of butterflies; and himself was astonished at the weakness +of his will. It seemed to him that he was swayed by every light emotion, as +though he were a leaf in the wind, and when passion seized him he was +powerless. He had no self-control. He merely seemed to possess it because he +was indifferent to many of the things which moved other people. +</p> + +<p> +He considered with some irony the philosophy which he had developed for +himself, for it had not been of much use to him in the conjuncture he had +passed through; and he wondered whether thought really helped a man in any of +the critical affairs of life: it seemed to him rather that he was swayed by +some power alien to and yet within himself, which urged him like that great +wind of Hell which drove Paolo and Francesca ceaselessly on. He thought of what +he was going to do and, when the time came to act, he was powerless in the +grasp of instincts, emotions, he knew not what. He acted as though he were a +machine driven by the two forces of his environment and his personality; his +reason was someone looking on, observing the facts but powerless to interfere: +it was like those gods of Epicurus, who saw the doings of men from their +empyrean heights and had no might to alter one smallest particle of what +occurred. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXIX</h2> + +<p> +Philip went up to London a couple of days before the session began in order to +find himself rooms. He hunted about the streets that led out of the Westminster +Bridge Road, but their dinginess was distasteful to him; and at last he found +one in Kennington which had a quiet and old-world air. It reminded one a little +of the London which Thackeray knew on that side of the river, and in the +Kennington Road, through which the great barouche of the Newcomes must have +passed as it drove the family to the West of London, the plane-trees were +bursting into leaf. The houses in the street which Philip fixed upon were +two-storied, and in most of the windows was a notice to state that lodgings +were to let. He knocked at one which announced that the lodgings were +unfurnished, and was shown by an austere, silent woman four very small rooms, +in one of which there was a kitchen range and a sink. The rent was nine +shillings a week. Philip did not want so many rooms, but the rent was low and +he wished to settle down at once. He asked the landlady if she could keep the +place clean for him and cook his breakfast, but she replied that she had enough +work to do without that; and he was pleased rather than otherwise because she +intimated that she wished to have nothing more to do with him than to receive +his rent. She told him that, if he inquired at the grocer’s round the +corner, which was also a post office, he might hear of a woman who would +‘do’ for him. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had a little furniture which he had gathered as he went along, an +arm-chair that he had bought in Paris, and a table, a few drawings, and the +small Persian rug which Cronshaw had given him. His uncle had offered a fold-up +bed for which, now that he no longer let his house in August, he had no further +use; and by spending another ten pounds Philip bought himself whatever else was +essential. He spent ten shillings on putting a corn-coloured paper in the room +he was making his parlour; and he hung on the walls a sketch which Lawson had +given him of the Quai des Grands Augustins, and the photograph of the Odalisque +by Ingres and Manet’s Olympia which in Paris had been the objects of his +contemplation while he shaved. To remind himself that he too had once been +engaged in the practice of art, he put up a charcoal drawing of the young +Spaniard Miguel Ajuria: it was the best thing he had ever done, a nude standing +with clenched hands, his feet gripping the floor with a peculiar force, and on +his face that air of determination which had been so impressive; and though +Philip after the long interval saw very well the defects of his work its +associations made him look upon it with tolerance. He wondered what had +happened to Miguel. There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those +who have no talent. Perhaps, worn out by exposure, starvation, disease, he had +found an end in some hospital, or in an access of despair had sought death in +the turbid Seine; but perhaps with his Southern instability he had given up the +struggle of his own accord, and now, a clerk in some office in Madrid, turned +his fervent rhetoric to politics and bull-fighting. +</p> + +<p> +Philip asked Lawson and Hayward to come and see his new rooms, and they came, +one with a bottle of whiskey, the other with a pate de foie gras; and he was +delighted when they praised his taste. He would have invited the Scotch +stockbroker too, but he had only three chairs, and thus could entertain only a +definite number of guests. Lawson was aware that through him Philip had become +very friendly with Norah Nesbit and now remarked that he had run across her a +few days before. +</p> + +<p> +“She was asking how you were.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed at the mention of her name (he could not get himself out of the +awkward habit of reddening when he was embarrassed), and Lawson looked at him +quizzically. Lawson, who now spent most of the year in London, had so far +surrendered to his environment as to wear his hair short and to dress himself +in a neat serge suit and a bowler hat. +</p> + +<p> +“I gather that all is over between you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve not seen her for months.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was looking rather nice. She had a very smart hat on with a lot of +white ostrich feathers on it. She must be doing pretty well.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip changed the conversation, but he kept thinking of her, and after an +interval, when the three of them were talking of something else, he asked +suddenly: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you gather that Norah was angry with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit. She talked very nicely of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got half a mind to go and see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t eat you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had thought of Norah often. When Mildred left him his first thought was +of her, and he told himself bitterly that she would never have treated him so. +His impulse was to go to her; he could depend on her pity; but he was ashamed: +she had been good to him always, and he had treated her abominably. +</p> + +<p> +“If I’d only had the sense to stick to her!” he said to +himself, afterwards, when Lawson and Hayward had gone and he was smoking a last +pipe before going to bed. +</p> + +<p> +He remembered the pleasant hours they had spent together in the cosy +sitting-room in Vincent Square, their visits to galleries and to the play, and +the charming evenings of intimate conversation. He recollected her solicitude +for his welfare and her interest in all that concerned him. She had loved him +with a love that was kind and lasting, there was more than sensuality in it, it +was almost maternal; he had always known that it was a precious thing for which +with all his soul he should thank the gods. He made up his mind to throw +himself on her mercy. She must have suffered horribly, but he felt she had the +greatness of heart to forgive him: she was incapable of malice. Should he write +to her? No. He would break in on her suddenly and cast himself at her +feet—he knew that when the time came he would feel too shy to perform +such a dramatic gesture, but that was how he liked to think of it—and +tell her that if she would take him back she might rely on him for ever. He was +cured of the hateful disease from which he had suffered, he knew her worth, and +now she might trust him. His imagination leaped forward to the future. He +pictured himself rowing with her on the river on Sundays; he would take her to +Greenwich, he had never forgotten that delightful excursion with Hayward, and +the beauty of the Port of London remained a permanent treasure in his +recollection; and on the warm summer afternoons they would sit in the Park +together and talk: he laughed to himself as he remembered her gay chatter, +which poured out like a brook bubbling over little stones, amusing, flippant, +and full of character. The agony he had suffered would pass from his mind like +a bad dream. +</p> + +<p> +But when next day, about tea-time, an hour at which he was pretty certain to +find Norah at home, he knocked at her door his courage suddenly failed him. Was +it possible for her to forgive him? It would be abominable of him to force +himself on her presence. The door was opened by a maid new since he had been in +the habit of calling every day, and he inquired if Mrs. Nesbit was in. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you ask her if she could see Mr. Carey?” he said. +“I’ll wait here.” +</p> + +<p> +The maid ran upstairs and in a moment clattered down again. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you step up, please, sir. Second floor front.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Philip, with a slight smile. +</p> + +<p> +He went with a fluttering heart. He knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” said the well-known, cheerful voice. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to say come in to a new life of peace and happiness. When he entered +Norah stepped forward to greet him. She shook hands with him as if they had +parted the day before. A man stood up. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Carey—Mr. Kingsford.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, bitterly disappointed at not finding her alone, sat down and took stock +of the stranger. He had never heard her mention his name, but he seemed to +Philip to occupy his chair as though he were very much at home. He was a man of +forty, clean-shaven, with long fair hair very neatly plastered down, and the +reddish skin and pale, tired eyes which fair men get when their youth is +passed. He had a large nose, a large mouth; the bones of his face were +prominent, and he was heavily made; he was a man of more than average height, +and broad-shouldered. +</p> + +<p> +“I was wondering what had become of you,” said Norah, in her +sprightly manner. “I met Mr. Lawson the other day—did he tell +you?—and I informed him that it was really high time you came to see me +again.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip could see no shadow of embarrassment in her countenance, and he admired +the use with which she carried off an encounter of which himself felt the +intense awkwardness. She gave him tea. She was about to put sugar in it when he +stopped her. +</p> + +<p> +“How stupid of me!” she cried. “I forgot.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not believe that. She must remember quite well that he never took sugar +in his tea. He accepted the incident as a sign that her nonchalance was +affected. +</p> + +<p> +The conversation which Philip had interrupted went on, and presently he began +to feel a little in the way. Kingsford took no particular notice of him. He +talked fluently and well, not without humour, but with a slightly dogmatic +manner: he was a journalist, it appeared, and had something amusing to say on +every topic that was touched upon; but it exasperated Philip to find himself +edged out of the conversation. He was determined to stay the visitor out. He +wondered if he admired Norah. In the old days they had often talked of the men +who wanted to flirt with her and had laughed at them together. Philip tried to +bring back the conversation to matters which only he and Norah knew about, but +each time the journalist broke in and succeeded in drawing it away to a subject +upon which Philip was forced to be silent. He grew faintly angry with Norah, +for she must see he was being made ridiculous; but perhaps she was inflicting +this upon him as a punishment, and with this thought he regained his good +humour. At last, however, the clock struck six, and Kingsford got up. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Norah shook hands with him, and accompanied him to the landing. She shut the +door behind her and stood outside for a couple of minutes. Philip wondered what +they were talking about. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Mr. Kingsford?” he asked cheerfully, when she returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s the editor of one of Harmsworth’s Magazines. +He’s been taking a good deal of my work lately.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought he was never going.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you stayed. I wanted to have a talk with you.” She +curled herself into the large arm-chair, feet and all, in a way her small size +made possible, and lit a cigarette. He smiled when he saw her assume the +attitude which had always amused him. +</p> + +<p> +“You look just like a cat.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a flash of her dark, fine eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I really ought to break myself of the habit. It’s absurd to behave +like a child when you’re my age, but I’m comfortable with my legs +under me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awfully jolly to be sitting in this room again,” said +Philip happily. “You don’t know how I’ve missed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why on earth didn’t you come before?” she asked gaily. +</p> + +<p> +“I was afraid to,” he said, reddening. +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a look full of kindness. Her lips outlined a charming smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t have been.” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated for a moment. His heart beat quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you remember the last time we met? I treated you awfully +badly—I’m dreadfully ashamed of myself.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him steadily. She did not answer. He was losing his head; he +seemed to have come on an errand of which he was only now realising the +outrageousness. She did not help him, and he could only blurt out bluntly. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you ever forgive me?” +</p> + +<p> +Then impetuously he told her that Mildred had left him and that his unhappiness +had been so great that he almost killed himself. He told her of all that had +happened between them, of the birth of the child, and of the meeting with +Griffiths, of his folly and his trust and his immense deception. He told her +how often he had thought of her kindness and of her love, and how bitterly he +had regretted throwing it away: he had only been happy when he was with her, +and he knew now how great was her worth. His voice was hoarse with emotion. +Sometimes he was so ashamed of what he was saying that he spoke with his eyes +fixed on the ground. His face was distorted with pain, and yet he felt it a +strange relief to speak. At last he finished. He flung himself back in his +chair, exhausted, and waited. He had concealed nothing, and even, in his +self-abasement, he had striven to make himself more despicable than he had +really been. He was surprised that she did not speak, and at last he raised his +eyes. She was not looking at him. Her face was quite white, and she seemed to +be lost in thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you got anything to say to me?” +</p> + +<p> +She started and reddened. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you’ve had a rotten time,” she said. +“I’m dreadfully sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +She seemed about to go on, but she stopped, and again he waited. At length she +seemed to force herself to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m engaged to be married to Mr. Kingsford.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you tell me at once?” he cried. “You +needn’t have allowed me to humiliate myself before you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop you…. I met him soon after +you”—she seemed to search for an expression that should not wound +him—“told me your friend had come back. I was very wretched for a +bit, he was extremely kind to me. He knew someone had made me suffer, of course +he doesn’t know it was you, and I don’t know what I should have +done without him. And suddenly I felt I couldn’t go on working, working, +working; I was so tired, I felt so ill. I told him about my husband. He offered +to give me the money to get my divorce if I would marry him as soon as I could. +He had a very good job, and it wouldn’t be necessary for me to do +anything unless I wanted to. He was so fond of me and so anxious to take care +of me. I was awfully touched. And now I’m very, very fond of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got your divorce then?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got the decree nisi. It’ll be made absolute in July, +and then we are going to be married at once.” +</p> + +<p> +For some time Philip did not say anything. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I hadn’t made such a fool of myself,” he muttered at +length. +</p> + +<p> +He was thinking of his long, humiliating confession. She looked at him +curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“You were never really in love with me,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not very pleasant being in love.” +</p> + +<p> +But he was always able to recover himself quickly, and, getting up now and +holding out his hand, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll be very happy. After all, it’s the best thing +that could have happened to you.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked a little wistfully at him as she took his hand and held it. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll come and see me again, won’t you?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It would make me too +envious to see you happy.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked slowly away from her house. After all she was right when she said he +had never loved her. He was disappointed, irritated even, but his vanity was +more affected than his heart. He knew that himself. And presently he grew +conscious that the gods had played a very good practical joke on him, and he +laughed at himself mirthlessly. It is not very comfortable to have the gift of +being amused at one’s own absurdity. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXX</h2> + +<p> +For the next three months Philip worked on subjects which were new to him. The +unwieldy crowd which had entered the Medical School nearly two years before had +thinned out: some had left the hospital, finding the examinations more +difficult to pass than they expected, some had been taken away by parents who +had not foreseen the expense of life in London, and some had drifted away to +other callings. One youth whom Philip knew had devised an ingenious plan to +make money; he had bought things at sales and pawned them, but presently found +it more profitable to pawn goods bought on credit; and it had caused a little +excitement at the hospital when someone pointed out his name in police-court +proceedings. There had been a remand, then assurances on the part of a harassed +father, and the young man had gone out to bear the White Man’s Burden +overseas. The imagination of another, a lad who had never before been in a town +at all, fell to the glamour of music-halls and bar parlours; he spent his time +among racing-men, tipsters, and trainers, and now was become a +book-maker’s clerk. Philip had seen him once in a bar near Piccadilly +Circus in a tight-waisted coat and a brown hat with a broad, flat brim. A +third, with a gift for singing and mimicry, who had achieved success at the +smoking concerts of the Medical School by his imitation of notorious comedians, +had abandoned the hospital for the chorus of a musical comedy. Still another, +and he interested Philip because his uncouth manner and interjectional speech +did not suggest that he was capable of any deep emotion, had felt himself +stifle among the houses of London. He grew haggard in shut-in spaces, and the +soul he knew not he possessed struggled like a sparrow held in the hand, with +little frightened gasps and a quick palpitation of the heart: he yearned for +the broad skies and the open, desolate places among which his childhood had +been spent; and he walked off one day, without a word to anybody, between one +lecture and another; and the next thing his friends heard was that he had +thrown up medicine and was working on a farm. +</p> + +<p> +Philip attended now lectures on medicine and on surgery. On certain mornings in +the week he practised bandaging on out-patients glad to earn a little money, +and he was taught auscultation and how to use the stethoscope. He learned +dispensing. He was taking the examination in Materia Medica in July, and it +amused him to play with various drugs, concocting mixtures, rolling pills, and +making ointments. He seized avidly upon anything from which he could extract a +suggestion of human interest. +</p> + +<p> +He saw Griffiths once in the distance, but, not to have the pain of cutting him +dead, avoided him. Philip had felt a certain self-consciousness with +Griffiths’ friends, some of whom were now friends of his, when he +realised they knew of his quarrel with Griffiths and surmised they were aware +of the reason. One of them, a very tall fellow, with a small head and a languid +air, a youth called Ramsden, who was one of Griffiths’ most faithful +admirers, copied his ties, his boots, his manner of talking and his gestures, +told Philip that Griffiths was very much hurt because Philip had not answered +his letter. He wanted to be reconciled with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he asked you to give me the message?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no. I’m saying this entirely on my own,” said Ramsden. +“He’s awfully sorry for what he did, and he says you always behaved +like a perfect brick to him. I know he’d be glad to make it up. He +doesn’t come to the hospital because he’s afraid of meeting you, +and he thinks you’d cut him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should.” +</p> + +<p> +“It makes him feel rather wretched, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can bear the trifling inconvenience that he feels with a good deal of +fortitude,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll do anything he can to make it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“How childish and hysterical! Why should he care? I’m a very +insignificant person, and he can do very well without my company. I’m not +interested in him any more.” +</p> + +<p> +Ramsden thought Philip hard and cold. He paused for a moment or two, looking +about him in a perplexed way. +</p> + +<p> +“Harry wishes to God he’d never had anything to do with the +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does he?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He spoke with an indifference which he was satisfied with. No one could have +guessed how violently his heart was beating. He waited impatiently for Ramsden +to go on. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’ve quite got over it now, haven’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I?” said Philip. “Quite.” +</p> + +<p> +Little by little he discovered the history of Mildred’s relations with +Griffiths. He listened with a smile on his lips, feigning an equanimity which +quite deceived the dull-witted boy who talked to him. The week-end she spent +with Griffiths at Oxford inflamed rather than extinguished her sudden passion; +and when Griffiths went home, with a feeling that was unexpected in her she +determined to stay in Oxford by herself for a couple of days, because she had +been so happy in it. She felt that nothing could induce her to go back to +Philip. He revolted her. Griffiths was taken aback at the fire he had aroused, +for he had found his two days with her in the country somewhat tedious; and he +had no desire to turn an amusing episode into a tiresome affair. She made him +promise to write to her, and, being an honest, decent fellow, with natural +politeness and a desire to make himself pleasant to everybody, when he got home +he wrote her a long and charming letter. She answered it with reams of passion, +clumsy, for she had no gift of expression, ill-written, and vulgar; the letter +bored him, and when it was followed next day by another, and the day after by a +third, he began to think her love no longer flattering but alarming. He did not +answer; and she bombarded him with telegrams, asking him if he were ill and had +received her letters; she said his silence made her dreadfully anxious. He was +forced to write, but he sought to make his reply as casual as was possible +without being offensive: he begged her not to wire, since it was difficult to +explain telegrams to his mother, an old-fashioned person for whom a telegram +was still an event to excite tremor. She answered by return of post that she +must see him and announced her intention to pawn things (she had the +dressing-case which Philip had given her as a wedding-present and could raise +eight pounds on that) in order to come up and stay at the market town four +miles from which was the village in which his father practised. This frightened +Griffiths; and he, this time, made use of the telegraph wires to tell her that +she must do nothing of the kind. He promised to let her know the moment he came +up to London, and, when he did, found that she had already been asking for him +at the hospital at which he had an appointment. He did not like this, and, on +seeing her, told Mildred that she was not to come there on any pretext; and +now, after an absence of three weeks, he found that she bored him quite +decidedly; he wondered why he had ever troubled about her, and made up his mind +to break with her as soon as he could. He was a person who dreaded quarrels, +nor did he want to give pain; but at the same time he had other things to do, +and he was quite determined not to let Mildred bother him. When he met her he +was pleasant, cheerful, amusing, affectionate; he invented convincing excuses +for the interval since last he had seen her; but he did everything he could to +avoid her. When she forced him to make appointments he sent telegrams to her at +the last moment to put himself off; and his landlady (the first three months of +his appointment he was spending in rooms) had orders to say he was out when +Mildred called. She would waylay him in the street and, knowing she had been +waiting about for him to come out of the hospital for a couple of hours, he +would give her a few charming, friendly words and bolt off with the excuse that +he had a business engagement. He grew very skilful in slipping out of the +hospital unseen. Once, when he went back to his lodgings at midnight, he saw a +woman standing at the area railings and suspecting who it was went to beg a +shake-down in Ramsden’s rooms; next day the landlady told him that +Mildred had sat crying on the doorsteps for hours, and she had been obliged to +tell her at last that if she did not go away she would send for a policeman. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you, my boy,” said Ramsden, “you’re jolly well +out of it. Harry says that if he’d suspected for half a second she was +going to make such a blooming nuisance of herself he’d have seen himself +damned before he had anything to do with her.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought of her sitting on that doorstep through the long hours of the +night. He saw her face as she looked up dully at the landlady who sent her +away. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what she’s doing now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she’s got a job somewhere, thank God. That keeps her busy all +day.” +</p> + +<p> +The last thing he heard, just before the end of the summer session, was that +Griffiths, urbanity had given way at length under the exasperation of the +constant persecution. He had told Mildred that he was sick of being pestered, +and she had better take herself off and not bother him again. +</p> + +<p> +“It was the only thing he could do,” said Ramsden. “It was +getting a bit too thick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it all over then?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he hasn’t seen her for ten days. You know, Harry’s +wonderful at dropping people. This is about the toughest nut he’s ever +had to crack, but he’s cracked it all right.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Philip heard nothing more of her at all. She vanished into the vast +anonymous mass of the population of London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXI</h2> + +<p> +At the beginning of the winter session Philip became an out-patients’ +clerk. There were three assistant-physicians who took out-patients, two days a +week each, and Philip put his name down for Dr. Tyrell. He was popular with the +students, and there was some competition to be his clerk. Dr. Tyrell was a +tall, thin man of thirty-five, with a very small head, red hair cut short, and +prominent blue eyes: his face was bright scarlet. He talked well in a pleasant +voice, was fond of a little joke, and treated the world lightly. He was a +successful man, with a large consulting practice and a knighthood in prospect. +From commerce with students and poor people he had the patronising air, and +from dealing always with the sick he had the healthy man’s jovial +condescension, which some consultants achieve as the professional manner. He +made the patient feel like a boy confronted by a jolly schoolmaster; his +illness was an absurd piece of naughtiness which amused rather than irritated. +</p> + +<p> +The student was supposed to attend in the out-patients’ room every day, +see cases, and pick up what information he could; but on the days on which he +clerked his duties were a little more definite. At that time the +out-patients’ department at St. Luke’s consisted of three rooms, +leading into one another, and a large, dark waiting-room with massive pillars +of masonry and long benches. Here the patients waited after having been given +their ‘letters’ at mid-day; and the long rows of them, bottles and +gallipots in hand, some tattered and dirty, others decent enough, sitting in +the dimness, men and women of all ages, children, gave one an impression which +was weird and horrible. They suggested the grim drawings of Daumier. All the +rooms were painted alike, in salmon-colour with a high dado of maroon; and +there was in them an odour of disinfectants, mingling as the afternoon wore on +with the crude stench of humanity. The first room was the largest and in the +middle of it were a table and an office chair for the physician; on each side +of this were two smaller tables, a little lower: at one of these sat the +house-physician and at the other the clerk who took the ‘book’ for +the day. This was a large volume in which were written down the name, age, sex, +profession, of the patient and the diagnosis of his disease. +</p> + +<p> +At half past one the house-physician came in, rang the bell, and told the +porter to send in the old patients. There were always a good many of these, and +it was necessary to get through as many of them as possible before Dr. Tyrell +came at two. The H.P. with whom Philip came in contact was a dapper little man, +excessively conscious of his importance: he treated the clerks with +condescension and patently resented the familiarity of older students who had +been his contemporaries and did not use him with the respect he felt his +present position demanded. He set about the cases. A clerk helped him. The +patients streamed in. The men came first. Chronic bronchitis, “a nasty +’acking cough,” was what they chiefly suffered from; one went to +the H.P. and the other to the clerk, handing in their letters: if they were +going on well the words Rep 14 were written on them, and they went to the +dispensary with their bottles or gallipots in order to have medicine given them +for fourteen days more. Some old stagers held back so that they might be seen +by the physician himself, but they seldom succeeded in this; and only three or +four, whose condition seemed to demand his attention, were kept. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Tyrell came in with quick movements and a breezy manner. He reminded one +slightly of a clown leaping into the arena of a circus with the cry: Here we +are again. His air seemed to indicate: What’s all this nonsense about +being ill? I’ll soon put that right. He took his seat, asked if there +were any old patients for him to see, rapidly passed them in review, looking at +them with shrewd eyes as he discussed their symptoms, cracked a joke (at which +all the clerks laughed heartily) with the H.P., who laughed heartily too but +with an air as if he thought it was rather impudent for the clerks to laugh, +remarked that it was a fine day or a hot one, and rang the bell for the porter +to show in the new patients. +</p> + +<p> +They came in one by one and walked up to the table at which sat Dr. Tyrell. +They were old men and young men and middle-aged men, mostly of the labouring +class, dock labourers, draymen, factory hands, barmen; but some, neatly +dressed, were of a station which was obviously superior, shop-assistants, +clerks, and the like. Dr. Tyrell looked at these with suspicion. Sometimes they +put on shabby clothes in order to pretend they were poor; but he had a keen eye +to prevent what he regarded as fraud and sometimes refused to see people who, +he thought, could well pay for medical attendance. Women were the worst +offenders and they managed the thing more clumsily. They would wear a cloak and +a skirt which were almost in rags, and neglect to take the rings off their +fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can afford to wear jewellery you can afford a doctor. A hospital +is a charitable institution,” said Dr. Tyrell. +</p> + +<p> +He handed back the letter and called for the next case. +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ve got my letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care a hang about your letter; you get out. You’ve +got no business to come and steal the time which is wanted by the really +poor.” +</p> + +<p> +The patient retired sulkily, with an angry scowl. +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll probably write a letter to the papers on the gross +mismanagement of the London hospitals,” said Dr. Tyrell, with a smile, as +he took the next paper and gave the patient one of his shrewd glances. +</p> + +<p> +Most of them were under the impression that the hospital was an institution of +the state, for which they paid out of the rates, and took the attendance they +received as a right they could claim. They imagined the physician who gave them +his time was heavily paid. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Tyrell gave each of his clerks a case to examine. The clerk took the +patient into one of the inner rooms; they were smaller, and each had a couch in +it covered with black horse-hair: he asked his patient a variety of questions, +examined his lungs, his heart, and his liver, made notes of fact on the +hospital letter, formed in his own mind some idea of the diagnosis, and then +waited for Dr. Tyrell to come in. This he did, followed by a small crowd of +students, when he had finished the men, and the clerk read out what he had +learned. The physician asked him one or two questions, and examined the patient +himself. If there was anything interesting to hear students applied their +stethoscope: you would see a man with two or three to the chest, and two +perhaps to his back, while others waited impatiently to listen. The patient +stood among them a little embarrassed, but not altogether displeased to find +himself the centre of attention: he listened confusedly while Dr. Tyrell +discoursed glibly on the case. Two or three students listened again to +recognise the murmur or the crepitation which the physician described, and then +the man was told to put on his clothes. +</p> + +<p> +When the various cases had been examined Dr. Tyrell went back into the large +room and sat down again at his desk. He asked any student who happened to be +standing near him what he would prescribe for a patient he had just seen. The +student mentioned one or two drugs. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you?” said Dr. Tyrell. “Well, that’s original at +all events. I don’t think we’ll be rash.” +</p> + +<p> +This always made the students laugh, and with a twinkle of amusement at his own +bright humour the physician prescribed some other drug than that which the +student had suggested. When there were two cases of exactly the same sort and +the student proposed the treatment which the physician had ordered for the +first, Dr. Tyrell exercised considerable ingenuity in thinking of something +else. Sometimes, knowing that in the dispensary they were worked off their legs +and preferred to give the medicines which they had all ready, the good hospital +mixtures which had been found by the experience of years to answer their +purpose so well, he amused himself by writing an elaborate prescription. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll give the dispenser something to do. If we go on prescribing +mist: alb: he’ll lose his cunning.” +</p> + +<p> +The students laughed, and the doctor gave them a circular glance of enjoyment +in his joke. Then he touched the bell and, when the porter poked his head in, +said: +</p> + +<p> +“Old women, please.” +</p> + +<p> +He leaned back in his chair, chatting with the H.P. while the porter herded +along the old patients. They came in, strings of anaemic girls, with large +fringes and pallid lips, who could not digest their bad, insufficient food; old +ladies, fat and thin, aged prematurely by frequent confinements, with winter +coughs; women with this, that, and the other, the matter with them. Dr. Tyrell +and his house-physician got through them quickly. Time was getting on, and the +air in the small room was growing more sickly. The physician looked at his +watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Are there many new women today?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A good few, I think,” said the H.P. +</p> + +<p> +“We’d better have them in. You can go on with the old ones.” +</p> + +<p> +They entered. With the men the most common ailments were due to the excessive +use of alcohol, but with the women they were due to defective nourishment. By +about six o’clock they were finished. Philip, exhausted by standing all +the time, by the bad air, and by the attention he had given, strolled over with +his fellow-clerks to the Medical School to have tea. He found the work of +absorbing interest. There was humanity there in the rough, the materials the +artist worked on; and Philip felt a curious thrill when it occurred to him that +he was in the position of the artist and the patients were like clay in his +hands. He remembered with an amused shrug of the shoulders his life in Paris, +absorbed in colour, tone, values, Heaven knows what, with the aim of producing +beautiful things: the directness of contact with men and women gave a thrill of +power which he had never known. He found an endless excitement in looking at +their faces and hearing them speak; they came in each with his peculiarity, +some shuffling uncouthly, some with a little trip, others with heavy, slow +tread, some shyly. Often you could guess their trades by the look of them. You +learnt in what way to put your questions so that they should be understood, you +discovered on what subjects nearly all lied, and by what inquiries you could +extort the truth notwithstanding. You saw the different way people took the +same things. The diagnosis of dangerous illness would be accepted by one with a +laugh and a joke, by another with dumb despair. Philip found that he was less +shy with these people than he had ever been with others; he felt not exactly +sympathy, for sympathy suggests condescension; but he felt at home with them. +He found that he was able to put them at their ease, and, when he had been +given a case to find out what he could about it, it seemed to him that the +patient delivered himself into his hands with a peculiar confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” he thought to himself, with a smile, “perhaps +I’m cut out to be a doctor. It would be rather a lark if I’d hit +upon the one thing I’m fit for.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Philip that he alone of the clerks saw the dramatic interest of +those afternoons. To the others men and women were only cases, good if they +were complicated, tiresome if obvious; they heard murmurs and were astonished +at abnormal livers; an unexpected sound in the lungs gave them something to +talk about. But to Philip there was much more. He found an interest in just +looking at them, in the shape of their heads and their hands, in the look of +their eyes and the length of their noses. You saw in that room human nature +taken by surprise, and often the mask of custom was torn off rudely, showing +you the soul all raw. Sometimes you saw an untaught stoicism which was +profoundly moving. Once Philip saw a man, rough and illiterate, told his case +was hopeless; and, self-controlled himself, he wondered at the splendid +instinct which forced the fellow to keep a stiff upper-lip before strangers. +But was it possible for him to be brave when he was by himself, face to face +with his soul, or would he then surrender to despair? Sometimes there was +tragedy. Once a young woman brought her sister to be examined, a girl of +eighteen, with delicate features and large blue eyes, fair hair that sparkled +with gold when a ray of autumn sunshine touched it for a moment, and a skin of +amazing beauty. The students’ eyes went to her with little smiles. They +did not often see a pretty girl in these dingy rooms. The elder woman gave the +family history, father and mother had died of phthisis, a brother and a sister, +these two were the only ones left. The girl had been coughing lately and losing +weight. She took off her blouse and the skin of her neck was like milk. Dr. +Tyrell examined her quietly, with his usual rapid method; he told two or three +of his clerks to apply their stethoscopes to a place he indicated with his +finger; and then she was allowed to dress. The sister was standing a little +apart and she spoke to him in a low voice, so that the girl should not hear. +Her voice trembled with fear. +</p> + +<p> +“She hasn’t got it, doctor, has she?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was the last one. When she goes I shan’t have anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +She began to cry, while the doctor looked at her gravely; he thought she too +had the type; she would not make old bones either. The girl turned round and +saw her sister’s tears. She understood what they meant. The colour fled +from her lovely face and tears fell down her cheeks. The two stood for a minute +or two, crying silently, and then the older, forgetting the indifferent crowd +that watched them, went up to her, took her in her arms, and rocked her gently +to and fro as if she were a baby. +</p> + +<p> +When they were gone a student asked: +</p> + +<p> +“How long d’you think she’ll last, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Tyrell shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Her brother and sister died within three months of the first symptoms. +She’ll do the same. If they were rich one might do something. You +can’t tell these people to go to St. Moritz. Nothing can be done for +them.” +</p> + +<p> +Once a man who was strong and in all the power of his manhood came because a +persistent aching troubled him and his club-doctor did not seem to do him any +good; and the verdict for him too was death, not the inevitable death that +horrified and yet was tolerable because science was helpless before it, but the +death which was inevitable because the man was a little wheel in the great +machine of a complex civilisation, and had as little power of changing the +circumstances as an automaton. Complete rest was his only chance. The physician +did not ask impossibilities. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to get some very much lighter job.” +</p> + +<p> +“There ain’t no light jobs in my business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you go on like this you’ll kill yourself. You’re +very ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say I’m going to die?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t like to say that, but you’re certainly unfit for +hard work.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I don’t work who’s to keep the wife and the kids?” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Tyrell shrugged his shoulders. The dilemma had been presented to him a +hundred times. Time was pressing and there were many patients to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll give you some medicine and you can come back in a week +and tell me how you’re getting on.” +</p> + +<p> +The man took his letter with the useless prescription written upon it and +walked out. The doctor might say what he liked. He did not feel so bad that he +could not go on working. He had a good job and he could not afford to throw it +away. +</p> + +<p> +“I give him a year,” said Dr. Tyrell. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes there was comedy. Now and then came a flash of cockney humour, now +and then some old lady, a character such as Charles Dickens might have drawn, +would amuse them by her garrulous oddities. Once a woman came who was a member +of the ballet at a famous music-hall. She looked fifty, but gave her age as +twenty-eight. She was outrageously painted and ogled the students impudently +with large black eyes; her smiles were grossly alluring. She had abundant +self-confidence and treated Dr. Tyrell, vastly amused, with the easy +familiarity with which she might have used an intoxicated admirer. She had +chronic bronchitis, and told him it hindered her in the exercise of her +profession. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why I should ’ave such a thing, upon my word I +don’t. I’ve never ’ad a day’s illness in my life. +You’ve only got to look at me to know that.” +</p> + +<p> +She rolled her eyes round the young men, with a long sweep of her painted +eyelashes, and flashed her yellow teeth at them. She spoke with a cockney +accent, but with an affectation of refinement which made every word a feast of +fun. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s what they call a winter cough,” answered Dr. Tyrell +gravely. “A great many middle-aged women have it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I never! That is a nice thing to say to a lady. No one ever called +me middle-aged before.” +</p> + +<p> +She opened her eyes very wide and cocked her head on one side, looking at him +with indescribable archness. +</p> + +<p> +“That is the disadvantage of our profession,” said he. “It +forces us sometimes to be ungallant.” +</p> + +<p> +She took the prescription and gave him one last, luscious smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You will come and see me dance, dearie, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +He rang the bell for the next case. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you gentlemen were here to protect me.” +</p> + +<p> +But on the whole the impression was neither of tragedy nor of comedy. There was +no describing it. It was manifold and various; there were tears and laughter, +happiness and woe; it was tedious and interesting and indifferent; it was as +you saw it: it was tumultuous and passionate; it was grave; it was sad and +comic; it was trivial; it was simple and complex; joy was there and despair; +the love of mothers for their children, and of men for women; lust trailed +itself through the rooms with leaden feet, punishing the guilty and the +innocent, helpless wives and wretched children; drink seized men and women and +cost its inevitable price; death sighed in these rooms; and the beginning of +life, filling some poor girl with terror and shame, was diagnosed there. There +was neither good nor bad there. There were just facts. It was life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXII</h2> + +<p> +Towards the end of the year, when Philip was bringing to a close his three +months as clerk in the out-patients’ department, he received a letter +from Lawson, who was in Paris. +</p> + +<p> +Dear Philip, +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw is in London and would be glad to see you. He is living at 43 Hyde +Street, Soho. I don’t know where it is, but I daresay you will be able to +find out. Be a brick and look after him a bit. He is very down on his luck. He +will tell you what he is doing. Things are going on here very much as usual. +Nothing seems to have changed since you were here. Clutton is back, but he has +become quite impossible. He has quarrelled with everybody. As far as I can make +out he hasn’t got a cent, he lives in a little studio right away beyond +the Jardin des Plantes, but he won’t let anybody see his work. He +doesn’t show anywhere, so one doesn’t know what he is doing. He may +be a genius, but on the other hand he may be off his head. By the way, I ran +against Flanagan the other day. He was showing Mrs. Flanagan round the Quarter. +He has chucked art and is now in popper’s business. He seems to be +rolling. Mrs. Flanagan is very pretty and I’m trying to work a portrait. +How much would you ask if you were me? I don’t want to frighten them, and +then on the other hand I don’t want to be such an ass as to ask L150 if +they’re quite willing to give L300. +</p> + +<p> +                                              Yours ever,<br/> +                                                   Frederick Lawson. +</p> + +<p> +Philip wrote to Cronshaw and received in reply the following letter. It was +written on a half-sheet of common note-paper, and the flimsy envelope was +dirtier than was justified by its passage through the post. +</p> + +<p> +Dear Carey, +</p> + +<p> +Of course I remember you very well. I have an idea that I had some part in +rescuing you from the Slough of Despond in which myself am hopelessly immersed. +I shall be glad to see you. I am a stranger in a strange city and I am buffeted +by the philistines. It will be pleasant to talk of Paris. I do not ask you to +come and see me, since my lodging is not of a magnificence fit for the +reception of an eminent member of Monsieur Purgon’s profession, but you +will find me eating modestly any evening between seven and eight at a +restaurant yclept Au Bon Plaisir in Dean Street. +</p> + +<p> +                                          Your sincere<br/> +                                                  J. Cronshaw. +</p> + +<p> +Philip went the day he received this letter. The restaurant, consisting of one +small room, was of the poorest class, and Cronshaw seemed to be its only +customer. He was sitting in the corner, well away from draughts, wearing the +same shabby great-coat which Philip had never seen him without, with his old +bowler on his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I eat here because I can be alone,” he said. “They are not +doing well; the only people who come are a few trollops and one or two waiters +out of a job; they are giving up business, and the food is execrable. But the +ruin of their fortunes is my advantage.” +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw had before him a glass of absinthe. It was nearly three years since +they had met, and Philip was shocked by the change in his appearance. He had +been rather corpulent, but now he had a dried-up, yellow look: the skin of his +neck was loose and winkled; his clothes hung about him as though they had been +bought for someone else; and his collar, three or four sizes too large, added +to the slatternliness of his appearance. His hands trembled continually. Philip +remembered the handwriting which scrawled over the page with shapeless, +haphazard letters. Cronshaw was evidently very ill. +</p> + +<p> +“I eat little these days,” he said. “I’m very sick in +the morning. I’m just having some soup for my dinner, and then I shall +have a bit of cheese.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s glance unconsciously went to the absinthe, and Cronshaw, seeing +it, gave him the quizzical look with which he reproved the admonitions of +common sense. +</p> + +<p> +“You have diagnosed my case, and you think it’s very wrong of me to +drink absinthe.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve evidently got cirrhosis of the liver,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Evidently.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Philip in the way which had formerly had the power of making him +feel incredibly narrow. It seemed to point out that what he was thinking was +distressingly obvious; and when you have agreed with the obvious what more is +there to say? Philip changed the topic. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you going back to Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going back to Paris. I’m going to die.” +</p> + +<p> +The very naturalness with which he said this startled Philip. He thought of +half a dozen things to say, but they seemed futile. He knew that Cronshaw was a +dying man. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to settle in London then?” he asked lamely. +</p> + +<p> +“What is London to me? I am a fish out of water. I walk through the +crowded streets, men jostle me, and I seem to walk in a dead city. I felt that +I couldn’t die in Paris. I wanted to die among my own people. I +don’t know what hidden instinct drew me back at the last.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip knew of the woman Cronshaw had lived with and the two draggle-tailed +children, but Cronshaw had never mentioned them to him, and he did not like to +speak of them. He wondered what had happened to them. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why you talk of dying,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I had pneumonia a couple of winters ago, and they told me then it was a +miracle that I came through. It appears I’m extremely liable to it, and +another bout will kill me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what nonsense! You’re not so bad as all that. You’ve +only got to take precautions. Why don’t you give up drinking?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I don’t choose. It doesn’t matter what a man does if +he’s ready to take the consequences. Well, I’m ready to take the +consequences. You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it’s the only +thing I’ve got left now. What do you think life would be to me without +it? Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn for it; +and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel my soul swimming +in ineffable happiness. It disgusts you. You are a puritan and in your heart +you despise sensual pleasures. Sensual pleasures are the most violent and the +most exquisite. I am a man blessed with vivid senses, and I have indulged them +with all my soul. I have to pay the penalty now, and I am ready to pay.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at him for a while steadily. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you afraid?” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment Cronshaw did not answer. He seemed to consider his reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes, when I’m alone.” He looked at Philip. “You +think that’s a condemnation? You’re wrong. I’m not afraid of +my fear. It’s folly, the Christian argument that you should live always +in view of your death. The only way to live is to forget that you’re +going to die. Death is unimportant. The fear of it should never influence a +single action of the wise man. I know that I shall die struggling for breath, +and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to +keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a +pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold +still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you remember that Persian carpet you gave me?” asked +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw smiled his old, slow smile of past days. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you that it would give you an answer to your question when you +asked me what was the meaning of life. Well, have you discovered the +answer?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” smiled Philip. “Won’t you tell it me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, I can’t do that. The answer is meaningless unless you +discover it for yourself.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXIII</h2> + +<p> +Cronshaw was publishing his poems. His friends had been urging him to do this +for years, but his laziness made it impossible for him to take the necessary +steps. He had always answered their exhortations by telling them that the love +of poetry was dead in England. You brought out a book which had cost you years +of thought and labour; it was given two or three contemptuous lines among a +batch of similar volumes, twenty or thirty copies were sold, and the rest of +the edition was pulped. He had long since worn out the desire for fame. That +was an illusion like all else. But one of his friends had taken the matter into +his own hands. This was a man of letters, named Leonard Upjohn, whom Philip had +met once or twice with Cronshaw in the cafes of the Quarter. He had a +considerable reputation in England as a critic and was the accredited exponent +in this country of modern French literature. He had lived a good deal in France +among the men who made the Mercure de France the liveliest review of the day, +and by the simple process of expressing in English their point of view he had +acquired in England a reputation for originality. Philip had read some of his +articles. He had formed a style for himself by a close imitation of Sir Thomas +Browne; he used elaborate sentences, carefully balanced, and obsolete, +resplendent words: it gave his writing an appearance of individuality. Leonard +Upjohn had induced Cronshaw to give him all his poems and found that there were +enough to make a volume of reasonable size. He promised to use his influence +with publishers. Cronshaw was in want of money. Since his illness he had found +it more difficult than ever to work steadily; he made barely enough to keep +himself in liquor; and when Upjohn wrote to him that this publisher and the +other, though admiring the poems, thought it not worth while to publish them, +Cronshaw began to grow interested. He wrote impressing upon Upjohn his great +need and urging him to make more strenuous efforts. Now that he was going to +die he wanted to leave behind him a published book, and at the back of his mind +was the feeling that he had produced great poetry. He expected to burst upon +the world like a new star. There was something fine in keeping to himself these +treasures of beauty all his life and giving them to the world disdainfully +when, he and the world parting company, he had no further use for them. +</p> + +<p> +His decision to come to England was caused directly by an announcement from +Leonard Upjohn that a publisher had consented to print the poems. By a miracle +of persuasion Upjohn had persuaded him to give ten pounds in advance of +royalties. +</p> + +<p> +“In advance of royalties, mind you,” said Cronshaw to Philip. +“Milton only got ten pounds down.” +</p> + +<p> +Upjohn had promised to write a signed article about them, and he would ask his +friends who reviewed to do their best. Cronshaw pretended to treat the matter +with detachment, but it was easy to see that he was delighted with the thought +of the stir he would make. +</p> + +<p> +One day Philip went to dine by arrangement at the wretched eating-house at +which Cronshaw insisted on taking his meals, but Cronshaw did not appear. +Philip learned that he had not been there for three days. He got himself +something to eat and went round to the address from which Cronshaw had first +written to him. He had some difficulty in finding Hyde Street. It was a street +of dingy houses huddled together; many of the windows had been broken and were +clumsily repaired with strips of French newspaper; the doors had not been +painted for years; there were shabby little shops on the ground floor, +laundries, cobblers, stationers. Ragged children played in the road, and an old +barrel-organ was grinding out a vulgar tune. Philip knocked at the door of +Cronshaw’s house (there was a shop of cheap sweetstuffs at the bottom), +and it was opened by an elderly Frenchwoman in a dirty apron. Philip asked her +if Cronshaw was in. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes, there is an Englishman who lives at the top, at the back. I +don’t know if he’s in. If you want him you had better go up and +see.” +</p> + +<p> +The staircase was lit by one jet of gas. There was a revolting odour in the +house. When Philip was passing up a woman came out of a room on the first +floor, looked at him suspiciously, but made no remark. There were three doors +on the top landing. Philip knocked at one, and knocked again; there was no +reply; he tried the handle, but the door was locked. He knocked at another +door, got no answer, and tried the door again. It opened. The room was dark. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +He recognised Cronshaw’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Carey. Can I come in?” +</p> + +<p> +He received no answer. He walked in. The window was closed and the stink was +overpowering. There was a certain amount of light from the arc-lamp in the +street, and he saw that it was a small room with two beds in it, end to end; +there was a washing-stand and one chair, but they left little space for anyone +to move in. Cronshaw was in the bed nearest the window. He made no movement, +but gave a low chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you light the candle?” he said then. +</p> + +<p> +Philip struck a match and discovered that there was a candlestick on the floor +beside the bed. He lit it and put it on the washing-stand. Cronshaw was lying +on his back immobile; he looked very odd in his nightshirt; and his baldness +was disconcerting. His face was earthy and death-like. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, old man, you look awfully ill. Is there anyone to look after you +here?” +</p> + +<p> +“George brings me in a bottle of milk in the morning before he goes to +his work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s George?” +</p> + +<p> +“I call him George because his name is Adolphe. He shares this palatial +apartment with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip noticed then that the second bed had not been made since it was slept +in. The pillow was black where the head had rested. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say you’re sharing this room with somebody +else?” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? Lodging costs money in Soho. George is a waiter, he goes out at +eight in the morning and does not come in till closing time, so he isn’t +in my way at all. We neither of us sleep well, and he helps to pass away the +hours of the night by telling me stories of his life. He’s a Swiss, and +I’ve always had a taste for waiters. They see life from an entertaining +angle.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long have you been in bed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three days.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say you’ve had nothing but a bottle of milk +for the last three days? Why on earth didn’t you send me a line? I +can’t bear to think of you lying here all day long without a soul to +attend to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw gave a little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at your face. Why, dear boy, I really believe you’re +distressed. You nice fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip blushed. He had not suspected that his face showed the dismay he felt at +the sight of that horrible room and the wretched circumstances of the poor +poet. Cronshaw, watching Philip, went on with a gentle smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been quite happy. Look, here are my proofs. Remember that I +am indifferent to discomforts which would harass other folk. What do the +circumstances of life matter if your dreams make you lord paramount of time and +space?” +</p> + +<p> +The proofs were lying on his bed, and as he lay in the darkness he had been +able to place his hands on them. He showed them to Philip and his eyes glowed. +He turned over the pages, rejoicing in the clear type; he read out a stanza. +</p> + +<p> +“They don’t look bad, do they?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had an idea. It would involve him in a little expense and he could not +afford even the smallest increase of expenditure; but on the other hand this +was a case where it revolted him to think of economy. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I can’t bear the thought of your remaining here. I’ve +got an extra room, it’s empty at present, but I can easily get someone to +lend me a bed. Won’t you come and live with me for a while? It’ll +save you the rent of this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear boy, you’d insist on my keeping my window open.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have every window in the place sealed if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be all right tomorrow. I could have got up today, only I felt +lazy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you can very easily make the move. And then if you don’t feel +well at any time you can just go to bed, and I shall be there to look after +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it’ll please you I’ll come,” said Cronshaw, with +his torpid not unpleasant smile. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll be ripping.” +</p> + +<p> +They settled that Philip should fetch Cronshaw next day, and Philip snatched an +hour from his busy morning to arrange the change. He found Cronshaw dressed, +sitting in his hat and great-coat on the bed, with a small, shabby portmanteau, +containing his clothes and books, already packed: it was on the floor by his +feet, and he looked as if he were sitting in the waiting-room of a station. +Philip laughed at the sight of him. They went over to Kennington in a +four-wheeler, of which the windows were carefully closed, and Philip installed +his guest in his own room. He had gone out early in the morning and bought for +himself a second-hand bedstead, a cheap chest of drawers, and a looking-glass. +Cronshaw settled down at once to correct his proofs. He was much better. +</p> + +<p> +Philip found him, except for the irritability which was a symptom of his +disease, an easy guest. He had a lecture at nine in the morning, so did not see +Cronshaw till the night. Once or twice Philip persuaded him to share the +scrappy meal he prepared for himself in the evening, but Cronshaw was too +restless to stay in, and preferred generally to get himself something to eat in +one or other of the cheapest restaurants in Soho. Philip asked him to see Dr. +Tyrell, but he stoutly refused; he knew a doctor would tell him to stop +drinking, and this he was resolved not to do. He always felt horribly ill in +the morning, but his absinthe at mid-day put him on his feet again, and by the +time he came home, at midnight, he was able to talk with the brilliancy which +had astonished Philip when first he made his acquaintance. His proofs were +corrected; and the volume was to come out among the publications of the early +spring, when the public might be supposed to have recovered from the avalanche +of Christmas books. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXIV</h2> + +<p> +At the new year Philip became dresser in the surgical out-patients’ +department. The work was of the same character as that which he had just been +engaged on, but with the greater directness which surgery has than medicine; +and a larger proportion of the patients suffered from those two diseases which +a supine public allows, in its prudishness, to be spread broadcast. The +assistant-surgeon for whom Philip dressed was called Jacobs. He was a short, +fat man, with an exuberant joviality, a bald head, and a loud voice; he had a +cockney accent, and was generally described by the students as an ‘awful +bounder’; but his cleverness, both as a surgeon and as a teacher, caused +some of them to overlook this. He had also a considerable facetiousness, which +he exercised impartially on the patients and on the students. He took a great +pleasure in making his dressers look foolish. Since they were ignorant, +nervous, and could not answer as if he were their equal, this was not very +difficult. He enjoyed his afternoons, with the home truths he permitted +himself, much more than the students who had to put up with them with a smile. +One day a case came up of a boy with a club-foot. His parents wanted to know +whether anything could be done. Mr. Jacobs turned to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better take this case, Carey. It’s a subject you ought +to know something about.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed, all the more because the surgeon spoke obviously with a +humorous intention, and his brow-beaten dressers laughed obsequiously. It was +in point of fact a subject which Philip, since coming to the hospital, had +studied with anxious attention. He had read everything in the library which +treated of talipes in its various forms. He made the boy take off his boot and +stocking. He was fourteen, with a snub nose, blue eyes, and a freckled face. +His father explained that they wanted something done if possible, it was such a +hindrance to the kid in earning his living. Philip looked at him curiously. He +was a jolly boy, not at all shy, but talkative and with a cheekiness which his +father reproved. He was much interested in his foot. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only for the looks of the thing, you know,” he said to +Philip. “I don’t find it no trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet, Ernie,” said his father. “There’s too much +gas about you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip examined the foot and passed his hand slowly over the shapelessness of +it. He could not understand why the boy felt none of the humiliation which +always oppressed himself. He wondered why he could not take his deformity with +that philosophic indifference. Presently Mr. Jacobs came up to him. The boy was +sitting on the edge of a couch, the surgeon and Philip stood on each side of +him; and in a semi-circle, crowding round, were students. With accustomed +brilliancy Jacobs gave a graphic little discourse upon the club-foot: he spoke +of its varieties and of the forms which followed upon different anatomical +conditions. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’ve got talipes equinus?” he said, turning +suddenly to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt the eyes of his fellow-students rest on him, and he cursed himself +because he could not help blushing. He felt the sweat start up in the palms of +his hands. The surgeon spoke with the fluency due to long practice and with the +admirable perspicacity which distinguished him. He was tremendously interested +in his profession. But Philip did not listen. He was only wishing that the +fellow would get done quickly. Suddenly he realised that Jacobs was addressing +him. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mind taking off your sock for a moment, Carey?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt a shudder pass through him. He had an impulse to tell the surgeon +to go to hell, but he had not the courage to make a scene. He feared his brutal +ridicule. He forced himself to appear indifferent. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He sat down and unlaced his boot. His fingers were trembling and he thought he +should never untie the knot. He remembered how they had forced him at school to +show his foot, and the misery which had eaten into his soul. +</p> + +<p> +“He keeps his feet nice and clean, doesn’t he?” said Jacobs, +in his rasping, cockney voice. +</p> + +<p> +The attendant students giggled. Philip noticed that the boy whom they were +examining looked down at his foot with eager curiosity. Jacobs took the foot in +his hands and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s what I thought. I see you’ve had an operation. +When you were a child, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +He went on with his fluent explanations. The students leaned over and looked at +the foot. Two or three examined it minutely when Jacobs let it go. +</p> + +<p> +“When you’ve quite done,” said Philip, with a smile, +ironically. +</p> + +<p> +He could have killed them all. He thought how jolly it would be to jab a chisel +(he didn’t know why that particular instrument came into his mind) into +their necks. What beasts men were! He wished he could believe in hell so as to +comfort himself with the thought of the horrible tortures which would be +theirs. Mr. Jacobs turned his attention to treatment. He talked partly to the +boy’s father and partly to the students. Philip put on his sock and laced +his boot. At last the surgeon finished. But he seemed to have an afterthought +and turned to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, I think it might be worth your while to have an operation. Of +course I couldn’t give you a normal foot, but I think I can do something. +You might think about it, and when you want a holiday you can just come into +the hospital for a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had often asked himself whether anything could be done, but his distaste +for any reference to the subject had prevented him from consulting any of the +surgeons at the hospital. His reading told him that whatever might have been +done when he was a small boy, and then treatment of talipes was not as skilful +as in the present day, there was small chance now of any great benefit. Still +it would be worth while if an operation made it possible for him to wear a more +ordinary boot and to limp less. He remembered how passionately he had prayed +for the miracle which his uncle had assured him was possible to omnipotence. He +smiled ruefully. +</p> + +<p> +“I was rather a simple soul in those days,” he thought. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of February it was clear that Cronshaw was growing much worse. +He was no longer able to get up. He lay in bed, insisting that the window +should be closed always, and refused to see a doctor; he would take little +nourishment, but demanded whiskey and cigarettes: Philip knew that he should +have neither, but Cronshaw’s argument was unanswerable. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay they are killing me. I don’t care. You’ve warned +me, you’ve done all that was necessary: I ignore your warning. Give me +something to drink and be damned to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Leonard Upjohn blew in two or three times a week, and there was something of +the dead leaf in his appearance which made the word exactly descriptive of the +manner of his appearance. He was a weedy-looking fellow of five-and-thirty, +with long pale hair and a white face; he had the look of a man who lived too +little in the open air. He wore a hat like a dissenting minister’s. +Philip disliked him for his patronising manner and was bored by his fluent +conversation. Leonard Upjohn liked to hear himself talk. He was not sensitive +to the interest of his listeners, which is the first requisite of the good +talker; and he never realised that he was telling people what they knew +already. With measured words he told Philip what to think of Rodin, Albert +Samain, and Caesar Franck. Philip’s charwoman only came in for an hour in +the morning, and since Philip was obliged to be at the hospital all day +Cronshaw was left much alone. Upjohn told Philip that he thought someone should +remain with him, but did not offer to make it possible. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s dreadful to think of that great poet alone. Why, he might die +without a soul at hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think he very probably will,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you be so callous!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you come and do your work here every day, and then +you’d be near if he wanted anything?” asked Philip drily. +</p> + +<p> +“I? My dear fellow, I can only work in the surroundings I’m used +to, and besides I go out so much.” +</p> + +<p> +Upjohn was also a little put out because Philip had brought Cronshaw to his own +rooms. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you had left him in Soho,” he said, with a wave of his +long, thin hands. “There was a touch of romance in that sordid attic. I +could even bear it if it were Wapping or Shoreditch, but the respectability of +Kennington! What a place for a poet to die!” +</p> + +<p> +Cronshaw was often so ill-humoured that Philip could only keep his temper by +remembering all the time that this irritability was a symptom of the disease. +Upjohn came sometimes before Philip was in, and then Cronshaw would complain of +him bitterly. Upjohn listened with complacency. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is that Carey has no sense of beauty,” he smiled. +“He has a middle-class mind.” +</p> + +<p> +He was very sarcastic to Philip, and Philip exercised a good deal of +self-control in his dealings with him. But one evening he could not contain +himself. He had had a hard day at the hospital and was tired out. Leonard +Upjohn came to him, while he was making himself a cup of tea in the kitchen, +and said that Cronshaw was complaining of Philip’s insistence that he +should have a doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you realise that you’re enjoying a very rare, a very +exquisite privilege? You ought to do everything in your power, surely, to show +your sense of the greatness of your trust.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a rare and exquisite privilege which I can ill afford,” +said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Whenever there was any question of money, Leonard Upjohn assumed a slightly +disdainful expression. His sensitive temperament was offended by the reference. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s something fine in Cronshaw’s attitude, and you +disturb it by your importunity. You should make allowances for the delicate +imaginings which you cannot feel.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s face darkened. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go in to Cronshaw,” he said frigidly. +</p> + +<p> +The poet was lying on his back, reading a book, with a pipe in his mouth. The +air was musty; and the room, notwithstanding Philip’s tidying up, had the +bedraggled look which seemed to accompany Cronshaw wherever he went. He took +off his spectacles as they came in. Philip was in a towering rage. +</p> + +<p> +“Upjohn tells me you’ve been complaining to him because I’ve +urged you to have a doctor,” he said. “I want you to have a doctor, +because you may die any day, and if you hadn’t been seen by anyone I +shouldn’t be able to get a certificate. There’d have to be an +inquest and I should be blamed for not calling a doctor in.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hadn’t thought of that. I thought you wanted me to see a doctor +for my sake and not for your own. I’ll see a doctor whenever you +like.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not answer, but gave an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders. +Cronshaw, watching him, gave a little chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t look so angry, my dear. I know very well you want to do +everything you can for me. Let’s see your doctor, perhaps he can do +something for me, and at any rate it’ll comfort you.” He turned his +eyes to Upjohn. “You’re a damned fool, Leonard. Why d’you +want to worry the boy? He has quite enough to do to put up with me. +You’ll do nothing more for me than write a pretty article about me after +my death. I know you.” +</p> + +<p> +Next day Philip went to Dr. Tyrell. He felt that he was the sort of man to be +interested by the story, and as soon as Tyrell was free of his day’s work +he accompanied Philip to Kennington. He could only agree with what Philip had +told him. The case was hopeless. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take him into the hospital if you like,” he said. +“He can have a small ward.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing would induce him to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know, he may die any minute, or else he may get another attack of +pneumonia.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip nodded. Dr. Tyrell made one or two suggestions, and promised to come +again whenever Philip wanted him to. He left his address. When Philip went back +to Cronshaw he found him quietly reading. He did not trouble to inquire what +the doctor had said. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you satisfied now, dear boy?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose nothing will induce you to do any of the things Tyrell +advised?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” smiled Cronshaw. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXV</h2> + +<p> +About a fortnight after this Philip, going home one evening after his +day’s work at the hospital, knocked at the door of Cronshaw’s room. +He got no answer and walked in. Cronshaw was lying huddled up on one side, and +Philip went up to the bed. He did not know whether Cronshaw was asleep or +merely lay there in one of his uncontrollable fits of irritability. He was +surprised to see that his mouth was open. He touched his shoulder. Philip gave +a cry of dismay. He slipped his hand under Cronshaw’s shirt and felt his +heart; he did not know what to do; helplessly, because he had heard of this +being done, he held a looking-glass in front of his mouth. It startled him to +be alone with Cronshaw. He had his hat and coat still on, and he ran down the +stairs into the street; he hailed a cab and drove to Harley Street. Dr. Tyrell +was in. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, would you mind coming at once? I think Cronshaw’s +dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he is it’s not much good my coming, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be awfully grateful if you would. I’ve got a cab at the +door. It’ll only take half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +Tyrell put on his hat. In the cab he asked him one or two questions. +</p> + +<p> +“He seemed no worse than usual when I left this morning,” said +Philip. “It gave me an awful shock when I went in just now. And the +thought of his dying all alone…. D’you think he knew he was going to +die?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip remembered what Cronshaw had said. He wondered whether at that last +moment he had been seized with the terror of death. Philip imagined himself in +such a plight, knowing it was inevitable and with no one, not a soul, to give +an encouraging word when the fear seized him. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re rather upset,” said Dr. Tyrell. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at him with his bright blue eyes. They were not unsympathetic. When +he saw Cronshaw, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“He must have been dead for some hours. I should think he died in his +sleep. They do sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +The body looked shrunk and ignoble. It was not like anything human. Dr. Tyrell +looked at it dispassionately. With a mechanical gesture he took out his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must be getting along. I’ll send the certificate round. I +suppose you’ll communicate with the relatives.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think there are any,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“How about the funeral?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll see to that.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Tyrell gave Philip a glance. He wondered whether he ought to offer a couple +of sovereigns towards it. He knew nothing of Philip’s circumstances; +perhaps he could well afford the expense; Philip might think it impertinent if +he made any suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip and he went out together, parting on the doorstep, and Philip went to a +telegraph office in order to send a message to Leonard Upjohn. Then he went to +an undertaker whose shop he passed every day on his way to the hospital. His +attention had been drawn to it often by the three words in silver lettering on +a black cloth, which, with two model coffins, adorned the window: Economy, +Celerity, Propriety. They had always diverted him. The undertaker was a little +fat Jew with curly black hair, long and greasy, in black, with a large diamond +ring on a podgy finger. He received Philip with a peculiar manner formed by the +mingling of his natural blatancy with the subdued air proper to his calling. He +quickly saw that Philip was very helpless and promised to send round a woman at +once to perform the needful offices. His suggestions for the funeral were very +magnificent; and Philip felt ashamed of himself when the undertaker seemed to +think his objections mean. It was horrible to haggle on such a matter, and +finally Philip consented to an expensiveness which he could ill afford. +</p> + +<p> +“I quite understand, sir,” said the undertaker, “you +don’t want any show and that—I’m not a believer in +ostentation myself, mind you—but you want it done gentlemanly-like. You +leave it to me, I’ll do it as cheap as it can be done, ’aving +regard to what’s right and proper. I can’t say more than that, can +I?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip went home to eat his supper, and while he ate the woman came along to +lay out the corpse. Presently a telegram arrived from Leonard Upjohn. +</p> + +<p> +Shocked and grieved beyond measure. Regret cannot come tonight. Dining out. +With you early tomorrow. Deepest sympathy. Upjohn. +</p> + +<p> +In a little while the woman knocked at the door of the sitting-room. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve done now, sir. Will you come and look at ’im and see +it’s all right?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip followed her. Cronshaw was lying on his back, with his eyes closed and +his hands folded piously across his chest. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought by rights to ’ave a few flowers, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll get some tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave the body a glance of satisfaction. She had performed her job, and now +she rolled down her sleeves, took off her apron, and put on her bonnet. Philip +asked her how much he owed her. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, some give me two and sixpence and some give me five +shillings.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was ashamed to give her less than the larger sum. She thanked him with +just so much effusiveness as was seemly in presence of the grief he might be +supposed to feel, and left him. Philip went back into his sitting-room, cleared +away the remains of his supper, and sat down to read Walsham’s Surgery. +He found it difficult. He felt singularly nervous. When there was a sound on +the stairs he jumped, and his heart beat violently. That thing in the adjoining +room, which had been a man and now was nothing, frightened him. The silence +seemed alive, as if some mysterious movement were taking place within it; the +presence of death weighed upon these rooms, unearthly and terrifying: Philip +felt a sudden horror for what had once been his friend. He tried to force +himself to read, but presently pushed away his book in despair. What troubled +him was the absolute futility of the life which had just ended. It did not +matter if Cronshaw was alive or dead. It would have been just as well if he had +never lived. Philip thought of Cronshaw young; and it needed an effort of +imagination to picture him slender, with a springing step, and with hair on his +head, buoyant and hopeful. Philip’s rule of life, to follow one’s +instincts with due regard to the policeman round the corner, had not acted very +well there: it was because Cronshaw had done this that he had made such a +lamentable failure of existence. It seemed that the instincts could not be +trusted. Philip was puzzled, and he asked himself what rule of life was there, +if that one was useless, and why people acted in one way rather than in +another. They acted according to their emotions, but their emotions might be +good or bad; it seemed just a chance whether they led to triumph or disaster. +Life seemed an inextricable confusion. Men hurried hither and thither, urged by +forces they knew not; and the purpose of it all escaped them; they seemed to +hurry just for hurrying’s sake. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning Leonard Upjohn appeared with a small wreath of laurel. He was +pleased with his idea of crowning the dead poet with this; and attempted, +notwithstanding Philip’s disapproving silence, to fix it on the bald +head; but the wreath fitted grotesquely. It looked like the brim of a hat worn +by a low comedian in a music-hall. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll put it over his heart instead,” said Upjohn. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve put it on his stomach,” remarked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Upjohn gave a thin smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Only a poet knows where lies a poet’s heart,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +They went back into the sitting-room, and Philip told him what arrangements he +had made for the funeral. +</p> + +<p> +“I hoped you’ve spared no expense. I should like the hearse to be +followed by a long string of empty coaches, and I should like the horses to +wear tall nodding plumes, and there should be a vast number of mutes with long +streamers on their hats. I like the thought of all those empty coaches.” +</p> + +<p> +“As the cost of the funeral will apparently fall on me and I’m not +over flush just now, I’ve tried to make it as moderate as +possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my dear fellow, in that case, why didn’t you get him a +pauper’s funeral? There would have been something poetic in that. You +have an unerring instinct for mediocrity.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed a little, but did not answer; and next day he and Upjohn +followed the hearse in the one carriage which Philip had ordered. Lawson, +unable to come, had sent a wreath; and Philip, so that the coffin should not +seem too neglected, had bought a couple. On the way back the coachman whipped +up his horses. Philip was dog-tired and presently went to sleep. He was +awakened by Upjohn’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather lucky the poems haven’t come out yet. I think +we’d better hold them back a bit and I’ll write a preface. I began +thinking of it during the drive to the cemetery. I believe I can do something +rather good. Anyhow I’ll start with an article in The Saturday.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not reply, and there was silence between them. At last Upjohn said: +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay I’d be wiser not to whittle away my copy. I think +I’ll do an article for one of the reviews, and then I can just print it +afterwards as a preface.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip kept his eye on the monthlies, and a few weeks later it appeared. The +article made something of a stir, and extracts from it were printed in many of +the papers. It was a very good article, vaguely biographical, for no one knew +much of Cronshaw’s early life, but delicate, tender, and picturesque. +Leonard Upjohn in his intricate style drew graceful little pictures of Cronshaw +in the Latin Quarter, talking, writing poetry: Cronshaw became a picturesque +figure, an English Verlaine; and Leonard Upjohn’s coloured phrases took +on a tremulous dignity, a more pathetic grandiloquence, as he described the +sordid end, the shabby little room in Soho; and, with a reticence which was +wholly charming and suggested a much greater generosity than modesty allowed +him to state, the efforts he made to transport the Poet to some cottage +embowered with honeysuckle amid a flowering orchard. And the lack of sympathy, +well-meaning but so tactless, which had taken the poet instead to the vulgar +respectability of Kennington! Leonard Upjohn described Kennington with that +restrained humour which a strict adherence to the vocabulary of Sir Thomas +Browne necessitated. With delicate sarcasm he narrated the last weeks, the +patience with which Cronshaw bore the well-meaning clumsiness of the young +student who had appointed himself his nurse, and the pitifulness of that divine +vagabond in those hopelessly middle-class surroundings. Beauty from ashes, he +quoted from Isaiah. It was a triumph of irony for that outcast poet to die amid +the trappings of vulgar respectability; it reminded Leonard Upjohn of Christ +among the Pharisees, and the analogy gave him opportunity for an exquisite +passage. And then he told how a friend—his good taste did not suffer him +more than to hint subtly who the friend was with such gracious +fancies—had laid a laurel wreath on the dead poet’s heart; and the +beautiful dead hands had seemed to rest with a voluptuous passion upon +Apollo’s leaves, fragrant with the fragrance of art, and more green than +jade brought by swart mariners from the manifold, inexplicable China. And, an +admirable contrast, the article ended with a description of the middle-class, +ordinary, prosaic funeral of him who should have been buried like a prince or +like a pauper. It was the crowning buffet, the final victory of Philistia over +art, beauty, and immaterial things. +</p> + +<p> +Leonard Upjohn had never written anything better. It was a miracle of charm, +grace, and pity. He printed all Cronshaw’s best poems in the course of +the article, so that when the volume appeared much of its point was gone; but +he advanced his own position a good deal. He was thenceforth a critic to be +reckoned with. He had seemed before a little aloof; but there was a warm +humanity about this article which was infinitely attractive. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXVI</h2> + +<p> +In the spring Philip, having finished his dressing in the out-patients’ +department, became an in-patients’ clerk. This appointment lasted six +months. The clerk spent every morning in the wards, first in the men’s, +then in the women’s, with the house-physician; he wrote up cases, made +tests, and passed the time of day with the nurses. On two afternoons a week the +physician in charge went round with a little knot of students, examined the +cases, and dispensed information. The work had not the excitement, the constant +change, the intimate contact with reality, of the work in the +out-patients’ department; but Philip picked up a good deal of knowledge. +He got on very well with the patients, and he was a little flattered at the +pleasure they showed in his attendance on them. He was not conscious of any +deep sympathy in their sufferings, but he liked them; and because he put on no +airs he was more popular with them than others of the clerks. He was pleasant, +encouraging, and friendly. Like everyone connected with hospitals he found that +male patients were more easy to get on with than female. The women were often +querulous and ill-tempered. They complained bitterly of the hard-worked nurses, +who did not show them the attention they thought their right; and they were +troublesome, ungrateful, and rude. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Philip was fortunate enough to make a friend. One morning the +house-physician gave him a new case, a man; and, seating himself at the +bedside, Philip proceeded to write down particulars on the +‘letter.’ He noticed on looking at this that the patient was +described as a journalist: his name was Thorpe Athelny, an unusual one for a +hospital patient, and his age was forty-eight. He was suffering from a sharp +attack of jaundice, and had been taken into the ward on account of obscure +symptoms which it seemed necessary to watch. He answered the various questions +which it was Philip’s duty to ask him in a pleasant, educated voice. +Since he was lying in bed it was difficult to tell if he was short or tall, but +his small head and small hands suggested that he was a man of less than average +height. Philip had the habit of looking at people’s hands, and +Athelny’s astonished him: they were very small, with long, tapering +fingers and beautiful, rosy finger-nails; they were very smooth and except for +the jaundice would have been of a surprising whiteness. The patient kept them +outside the bed-clothes, one of them slightly spread out, the second and third +fingers together, and, while he spoke to Philip, seemed to contemplate them +with satisfaction. With a twinkle in his eyes Philip glanced at the man’s +face. Notwithstanding the yellowness it was distinguished; he had blue eyes, a +nose of an imposing boldness, hooked, aggressive but not clumsy, and a small +beard, pointed and gray: he was rather bald, but his hair had evidently been +quite fine, curling prettily, and he still wore it long. +</p> + +<p> +“I see you’re a journalist,” said Philip. “What papers +d’you write for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I write for all the papers. You cannot open a paper without seeing some +of my writing.” There was one by the side of the bed and reaching for it +he pointed out an advertisement. In large letters was the name of a firm +well-known to Philip, Lynn and Sedley, Regent Street, London; and below, in +type smaller but still of some magnitude, was the dogmatic statement: +Procrastination is the Thief of Time. Then a question, startling because of its +reasonableness: Why not order today? There was a repetition, in large letters, +like the hammering of conscience on a murderer’s heart: Why not? Then, +boldly: Thousands of pairs of gloves from the leading markets of the world at +astounding prices. Thousands of pairs of stockings from the most reliable +manufacturers of the universe at sensational reductions. Finally the question +recurred, but flung now like a challenging gauntlet in the lists: Why not order +today? +</p> + +<p> +“I’m the press representative of Lynn and Sedley.” He gave a +little wave of his beautiful hand. “To what base uses…” +</p> + +<p> +Philip went on asking the regulation questions, some a mere matter of routine, +others artfully devised to lead the patient to discover things which he might +be expected to desire to conceal. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever lived abroad?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I was in Spain for eleven years.” +</p> + +<p> +“What were you doing there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was secretary of the English water company at Toledo.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip remembered that Clutton had spent some months in Toledo, and the +journalist’s answer made him look at him with more interest; but he felt +it would be improper to show this: it was necessary to preserve the distance +between the hospital patient and the staff. When he had finished his +examination he went on to other beds. +</p> + +<p> +Thorpe Athelny’s illness was not grave, and, though remaining very +yellow, he soon felt much better: he stayed in bed only because the physician +thought he should be kept under observation till certain reactions became +normal. One day, on entering the ward, Philip noticed that Athelny, pencil in +hand, was reading a book. He put it down when Philip came to his bed. +</p> + +<p> +“May I see what you’re reading?” asked Philip, who could +never pass a book without looking at it. +</p> + +<p> +Philip took it up and saw that it was a volume of Spanish verse, the poems of +San Juan de la Cruz, and as he opened it a sheet of paper fell out. Philip +picked it up and noticed that verse was written upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not going to tell me you’ve been occupying your +leisure in writing poetry? That’s a most improper proceeding in a +hospital patient.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was trying to do some translations. D’you know Spanish?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know all about San Juan de la Cruz, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was one of the Spanish mystics. He’s one of the best poets +they’ve ever had. I thought it would be worth while translating him into +English.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I look at your translation?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very rough,” said Athelny, but he gave it to Philip +with an alacrity which suggested that he was eager for him to read it. +</p> + +<p> +It was written in pencil, in a fine but very peculiar handwriting, which was +hard to read: it was just like black letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t it take you an awful time to write like that? It’s +wonderful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why handwriting shouldn’t be beautiful.” +Philip read the first verse: +</p> + +<p> +             In an obscure night<br/> +             With anxious love inflamed<br/> +             O happy lot!<br/> +             Forth unobserved I went,<br/> +             My house being now at rest… +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked curiously at Thorpe Athelny. He did not know whether he felt a +little shy with him or was attracted by him. He was conscious that his manner +had been slightly patronising, and he flushed as it struck him that Athelny +might have thought him ridiculous. +</p> + +<p> +“What an unusual name you’ve got,” he remarked, for something +to say. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very old Yorkshire name. Once it took the head of my family +a day’s hard riding to make the circuit of his estates, but the mighty +are fallen. Fast women and slow horses.” +</p> + +<p> +He was short-sighted and when he spoke looked at you with a peculiar intensity. +He took up his volume of poetry. +</p> + +<p> +“You should read Spanish,” he said. “It is a noble tongue. It +has not the mellifluousness of Italian, Italian is the language of tenors and +organ-grinders, but it has grandeur: it does not ripple like a brook in a +garden, but it surges tumultuous like a mighty river in flood.” +</p> + +<p> +His grandiloquence amused Philip, but he was sensitive to rhetoric; and he +listened with pleasure while Athelny, with picturesque expressions and the fire +of a real enthusiasm, described to him the rich delight of reading Don Quixote +in the original and the music, romantic, limpid, passionate, of the enchanting +Calderon. +</p> + +<p> +“I must get on with my work,” said Philip presently. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, forgive me, I forgot. I will tell my wife to bring me a photograph +of Toledo, and I will show it you. Come and talk to me when you have the +chance. You don’t know what a pleasure it gives me.” +</p> + +<p> +During the next few days, in moments snatched whenever there was opportunity, +Philip’s acquaintance with the journalist increased. Thorpe Athelny was a +good talker. He did not say brilliant things, but he talked inspiringly, with +an eager vividness which fired the imagination; Philip, living so much in a +world of make-believe, found his fancy teeming with new pictures. Athelny had +very good manners. He knew much more than Philip, both of the world and of +books; he was a much older man; and the readiness of his conversation gave him +a certain superiority; but he was in the hospital a recipient of charity, +subject to strict rules; and he held himself between the two positions with +ease and humour. Once Philip asked him why he had come to the hospital. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my principle is to profit by all the benefits that society provides. +I take advantage of the age I live in. When I’m ill I get myself patched +up in a hospital and I have no false shame, and I send my children to be +educated at the board-school.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“And a capital education they get too, much better than I got at +Winchester. How else do you think I could educate them at all? I’ve got +nine. You must come and see them all when I get home again. Will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to very much,” said Philip. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXVII</h2> + +<p> +Ten days later Thorpe Athelny was well enough to leave the hospital. He gave +Philip his address, and Philip promised to dine with him at one o’clock +on the following Sunday. Athelny had told him that he lived in a house built by +Inigo Jones; he had raved, as he raved over everything, over the balustrade of +old oak; and when he came down to open the door for Philip he made him at once +admire the elegant carving of the lintel. It was a shabby house, badly needing +a coat of paint, but with the dignity of its period, in a little street between +Chancery Lane and Holborn, which had once been fashionable but was now little +better than a slum: there was a plan to pull it down in order to put up +handsome offices; meanwhile the rents were small, and Athelny was able to get +the two upper floors at a price which suited his income. Philip had not seen +him up before and was surprised at his small size; he was not more than five +feet and five inches high. He was dressed fantastically in blue linen trousers +of the sort worn by working men in France, and a very old brown velvet coat; he +wore a bright red sash round his waist, a low collar, and for tie a flowing bow +of the kind used by the comic Frenchman in the pages of Punch. He greeted +Philip with enthusiasm. He began talking at once of the house and passed his +hand lovingly over the balusters. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at it, feel it, it’s like silk. What a miracle of grace! And +in five years the house-breaker will sell it for firewood.” +</p> + +<p> +He insisted on taking Philip into a room on the first floor, where a man in +shirt sleeves, a blousy woman, and three children were having their Sunday +dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just brought this gentleman in to show him your ceiling. Did +you ever see anything so wonderful? How are you, Mrs. Hodgson? This is Mr. +Carey, who looked after me when I was in the hospital.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, sir,” said the man. “Any friend of Mr. +Athelny’s is welcome. Mr. Athelny shows the ceiling to all his friends. +And it don’t matter what we’re doing, if we’re in bed or if +I’m ’aving a wash, in ’e comes.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip could see that they looked upon Athelny as a little queer; but they +liked him none the less and they listened open-mouthed while he discoursed with +his impetuous fluency on the beauty of the seventeenth-century ceiling. +</p> + +<p> +“What a crime to pull this down, eh, Hodgson? You’re an influential +citizen, why don’t you write to the papers and protest?” +</p> + +<p> +The man in shirt sleeves gave a laugh and said to Philip: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Athelny will ’ave his little joke. They do say these +’ouses are that insanitory, it’s not safe to live in them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sanitation be damned, give me art,” cried Athelny. +“I’ve got nine children and they thrive on bad drains. No, no, +I’m not going to take any risk. None of your new-fangled notions for me! +When I move from here I’m going to make sure the drains are bad before I +take anything.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a knock at the door, and a little fair-haired girl opened it. +</p> + +<p> +“Daddy, mummy says, do stop talking and come and eat your dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is my third daughter,” said Athelny, pointing to her with a +dramatic forefinger. “She is called Maria del Pilar, but she answers more +willingly to the name of Jane. Jane, your nose wants blowing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t got a hanky, daddy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tut, tut, child,” he answered, as he produced a vast, brilliant +bandanna, “what do you suppose the Almighty gave you fingers for?” +</p> + +<p> +They went upstairs, and Philip was taken into a room with walls panelled in +dark oak. In the middle was a narrow table of teak on trestle legs, with two +supporting bars of iron, of the kind called in Spain mesa de hieraje. They were +to dine there, for two places were laid, and there were two large arm-chairs, +with broad flat arms of oak and leathern backs, and leathern seats. They were +severe, elegant, and uncomfortable. The only other piece of furniture was a +bargueno, elaborately ornamented with gilt iron-work, on a stand of +ecclesiastical design roughly but very finely carved. There stood on this two +or three lustre plates, much broken but rich in colour; and on the walls were +old masters of the Spanish school in beautiful though dilapidated frames: +though gruesome in subject, ruined by age and bad treatment, and second-rate in +their conception, they had a glow of passion. There was nothing in the room of +any value, but the effect was lovely. It was magnificent and yet austere. +Philip felt that it offered the very spirit of old Spain. Athelny was in the +middle of showing him the inside of the bargueno, with its beautiful +ornamentation and secret drawers, when a tall girl, with two plaits of bright +brown hair hanging down her back, came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother says dinner’s ready and waiting and I’m to bring it +in as soon as you sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come and shake hands with Mr. Carey, Sally.” He turned to Philip. +“Isn’t she enormous? She’s my eldest. How old are you, +Sally?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen, father, come next June.” +</p> + +<p> +“I christened her Maria del Sol, because she was my first child and I +dedicated her to the glorious sun of Castile; but her mother calls her Sally +and her brother Pudding-Face.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl smiled shyly, she had even, white teeth, and blushed. She was well +set-up, tall for her age, with pleasant gray eyes and a broad forehead. She had +red cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Go and tell your mother to come in and shake hands with Mr. Carey before +he sits down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother says she’ll come in after dinner. She hasn’t washed +herself yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ll go in and see her ourselves. He mustn’t eat the +Yorkshire pudding till he’s shaken the hand that made it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip followed his host into the kitchen. It was small and much overcrowded. +There had been a lot of noise, but it stopped as soon as the stranger entered. +There was a large table in the middle and round it, eager for dinner, were +seated Athelny’s children. A woman was standing at the oven, taking out +baked potatoes one by one. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s Mr. Carey, Betty,” said Athelny. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy bringing him in here. What will he think?” +</p> + +<p> +She wore a dirty apron, and the sleeves of her cotton dress were turned up +above her elbows; she had curling pins in her hair. Mrs. Athelny was a large +woman, a good three inches taller than her husband, fair, with blue eyes and a +kindly expression; she had been a handsome creature, but advancing years and +the bearing of many children had made her fat and blousy; her blue eyes had +become pale, her skin was coarse and red, the colour had gone out of her hair. +She straightened herself, wiped her hand on her apron, and held it out. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re welcome, sir,” she said, in a slow voice, with an +accent that seemed oddly familiar to Philip. “Athelny said you was very +kind to him in the ’orspital.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you must be introduced to the live stock,” said Athelny. +“That is Thorpe,” he pointed to a chubby boy with curly hair, +“he is my eldest son, heir to the title, estates, and responsibilities of +the family. There is Athelstan, Harold, Edward.” He pointed with his +forefinger to three smaller boys, all rosy, healthy, and smiling, though when +they felt Philip’s smiling eyes upon them they looked shyly down at their +plates. “Now the girls in order: Maria del Sol…” +</p> + +<p> +“Pudding-Face,” said one of the small boys. +</p> + +<p> +“Your sense of humour is rudimentary, my son. Maria de los Mercedes, +Maria del Pilar, Maria de la Concepcion, Maria del Rosario.” +</p> + +<p> +“I call them Sally, Molly, Connie, Rosie, and Jane,” said Mrs. +Athelny. “Now, Athelny, you go into your own room and I’ll send you +your dinner. I’ll let the children come in afterwards for a bit when +I’ve washed them.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, if I’d had the naming of you I should have called you +Maria of the Soapsuds. You’re always torturing these wretched brats with +soap.” +</p> + +<p> +“You go first, Mr. Carey, or I shall never get him to sit down and eat +his dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +Athelny and Philip installed themselves in the great monkish chairs, and Sally +brought them in two plates of beef, Yorkshire pudding, baked potatoes, and +cabbage. Athelny took sixpence out of his pocket and sent her for a jug of +beer. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you didn’t have the table laid here on my account,” +said Philip. “I should have been quite happy to eat with the +children.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I always have my meals by myself. I like these antique customs. I +don’t think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins +conversation and I’m sure it’s very bad for them. It puts ideas in +their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have +ideas.” +</p> + +<p> +Both host and guest ate with a hearty appetite. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever taste such Yorkshire pudding? No one can make it like my +wife. That’s the advantage of not marrying a lady. You noticed she +wasn’t a lady, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +It was an awkward question, and Philip did not know how to answer it. +</p> + +<p> +“I never thought about it,” he said lamely. +</p> + +<p> +Athelny laughed. He had a peculiarly joyous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“No, she’s not a lady, nor anything like it. Her father was a +farmer, and she’s never bothered about aitches in her life. We’ve +had twelve children and nine of them are alive. I tell her it’s about +time she stopped, but she’s an obstinate woman, she’s got into the +habit of it now, and I don’t believe she’ll be satisfied till +she’s had twenty.” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment Sally came in with the beer, and, having poured out a glass for +Philip, went to the other side of the table to pour some out for her father. He +put his hand round her waist. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see such a handsome, strapping girl? Only fifteen and she +might be twenty. Look at her cheeks. She’s never had a day’s +illness in her life. It’ll be a lucky man who marries her, won’t +it, Sally?” +</p> + +<p> +Sally listened to all this with a slight, slow smile, not much embarrassed, for +she was accustomed to her father’s outbursts, but with an easy modesty +which was very attractive. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let your dinner get cold, father,” she said, drawing +herself away from his arm. “You’ll call when you’re ready for +your pudding, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +They were left alone, and Athelny lifted the pewter tankard to his lips. He +drank long and deep. +</p> + +<p> +“My word, is there anything better than English beer?” he said. +“Let us thank God for simple pleasures, roast beef and rice pudding, a +good appetite and beer. I was married to a lady once. My God! Don’t marry +a lady, my boy.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip laughed. He was exhilarated by the scene, the funny little man in his +odd clothes, the panelled room and the Spanish furniture, the English fare: the +whole thing had an exquisite incongruity. +</p> + +<p> +“You laugh, my boy, you can’t imagine marrying beneath you. You +want a wife who’s an intellectual equal. Your head is crammed full of +ideas of comradeship. Stuff and nonsense, my boy! A man doesn’t want to +talk politics to his wife, and what do you think I care for Betty’s views +upon the Differential Calculus? A man wants a wife who can cook his dinner and +look after his children. I’ve tried both and I know. Let’s have the +pudding in.” +</p> + +<p> +He clapped his hands and presently Sally came. When she took away the plates, +Philip wanted to get up and help her, but Athelny stopped him. +</p> + +<p> +“Let her alone, my boy. She doesn’t want you to fuss about, do you, +Sally? And she won’t think it rude of you to sit still while she waits +upon you. She don’t care a damn for chivalry, do you, Sally?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, father,” answered Sally demurely. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what I’m talking about, Sally?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, father. But you know mother doesn’t like you to swear.” +</p> + +<p> +Athelny laughed boisterously. Sally brought them plates of rice pudding, rich, +creamy, and luscious. Athelny attacked his with gusto. +</p> + +<p> +“One of the rules of this house is that Sunday dinner should never alter. +It is a ritual. Roast beef and rice pudding for fifty Sundays in the year. On +Easter Sunday lamb and green peas, and at Michaelmas roast goose and apple +sauce. Thus we preserve the traditions of our people. When Sally marries she +will forget many of the wise things I have taught her, but she will never +forget that if you want to be good and happy you must eat on Sundays roast beef +and rice pudding.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll call when you’re ready for cheese,” said Sally +impassively. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you know the legend of the halcyon?” said Athelny: Philip +was growing used to his rapid leaping from one subject to another. “When +the kingfisher, flying over the sea, is exhausted, his mate places herself +beneath him and bears him along upon her stronger wings. That is what a man +wants in a wife, the halcyon. I lived with my first wife for three years. She +was a lady, she had fifteen hundred a year, and we used to give nice little +dinner parties in our little red brick house in Kensington. She was a charming +woman; they all said so, the barristers and their wives who dined with us, and +the literary stockbrokers, and the budding politicians; oh, she was a charming +woman. She made me go to church in a silk hat and a frock coat, she took me to +classical concerts, and she was very fond of lectures on Sunday afternoon; and +she sat down to breakfast every morning at eight-thirty, and if I was late +breakfast was cold; and she read the right books, admired the right pictures, +and adored the right music. My God, how that woman bored me! She is charming +still, and she lives in the little red brick house in Kensington, with Morris +papers and Whistler’s etchings on the walls, and gives the same nice +little dinner parties, with veal creams and ices from Gunter’s, as she +did twenty years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not ask by what means the ill-matched couple had separated, but +Athelny told him. +</p> + +<p> +“Betty’s not my wife, you know; my wife wouldn’t divorce me. +The children are bastards, every jack one of them, and are they any the worse +for that? Betty was one of the maids in the little red brick house in +Kensington. Four or five years ago I was on my uppers, and I had seven +children, and I went to my wife and asked her to help me. She said she’d +make me an allowance if I’d give Betty up and go abroad. Can you see me +giving Betty up? We starved for a while instead. My wife said I loved the +gutter. I’ve degenerated; I’ve come down in the world; I earn three +pounds a week as press agent to a linendraper, and every day I thank God that +I’m not in the little red brick house in Kensington.” +</p> + +<p> +Sally brought in Cheddar cheese, and Athelny went on with his fluent +conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the greatest mistake in the world to think that one needs +money to bring up a family. You need money to make them gentlemen and ladies, +but I don’t want my children to be ladies and gentlemen. Sally’s +going to earn her living in another year. She’s to be apprenticed to a +dressmaker, aren’t you, Sally? And the boys are going to serve their +country. I want them all to go into the Navy; it’s a jolly life and a +healthy life, good food, good pay, and a pension to end their days on.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip lit his pipe. Athelny smoked cigarettes of Havana tobacco, which he +rolled himself. Sally cleared away. Philip was reserved, and it embarrassed him +to be the recipient of so many confidences. Athelny, with his powerful voice in +the diminutive body, with his bombast, with his foreign look, with his +emphasis, was an astonishing creature. He reminded Philip a good deal of +Cronshaw. He appeared to have the same independence of thought, the same +bohemianism, but he had an infinitely more vivacious temperament; his mind was +coarser, and he had not that interest in the abstract which made +Cronshaw’s conversation so captivating. Athelny was very proud of the +county family to which he belonged; he showed Philip photographs of an +Elizabethan mansion, and told him: +</p> + +<p> +“The Athelnys have lived there for seven centuries, my boy. Ah, if you +saw the chimney-pieces and the ceilings!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a cupboard in the wainscoting and from this he took a family tree. He +showed it to Philip with child-like satisfaction. It was indeed imposing. +</p> + +<p> +“You see how the family names recur, Thorpe, Athelstan, Harold, Edward; +I’ve used the family names for my sons. And the girls, you see, +I’ve given Spanish names to.” +</p> + +<p> +An uneasy feeling came to Philip that possibly the whole story was an elaborate +imposture, not told with any base motive, but merely from a wish to impress, +startle, and amaze. Athelny had told him that he was at Winchester; but Philip, +sensitive to differences of manner, did not feel that his host had the +characteristics of a man educated at a great public school. While he pointed +out the great alliances which his ancestors had formed, Philip amused himself +by wondering whether Athelny was not the son of some tradesman in Winchester, +auctioneer or coal-merchant, and whether a similarity of surname was not his +only connection with the ancient family whose tree he was displaying. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXVIII</h2> + +<p> +There was a knock at the door and a troop of children came in. They were clean +and tidy, now. Their faces shone with soap, and their hair was plastered down; +they were going to Sunday school under Sally’s charge. Athelny joked with +them in his dramatic, exuberant fashion, and you could see that he was devoted +to them all. His pride in their good health and their good looks was touching. +Philip felt that they were a little shy in his presence, and when their father +sent them off they fled from the room in evident relief. In a few minutes Mrs. +Athelny appeared. She had taken her hair out of the curling pins and now wore +an elaborate fringe. She had on a plain black dress, a hat with cheap flowers, +and was forcing her hands, red and coarse from much work, into black kid +gloves. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to church, Athelny,” she said. +“There’s nothing you’ll be wanting, is there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only your prayers, my Betty.” +</p> + +<p> +“They won’t do you much good, you’re too far gone for +that,” she smiled. Then, turning to Philip, she drawled: “I +can’t get him to go to church. He’s no better than an +atheist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t she look like Rubens’ second wife?” cried +Athelny. “Wouldn’t she look splendid in a seventeenth-century +costume? That’s the sort of wife to marry, my boy. Look at her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you’d talk the hind leg off a donkey, Athelny,” +she answered calmly. +</p> + +<p> +She succeeded in buttoning her gloves, but before she went she turned to Philip +with a kindly, slightly embarrassed smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll stay to tea, won’t you? Athelny likes someone to talk +to, and it’s not often he gets anybody who’s clever enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he’ll stay to tea,” said Athelny. Then when his +wife had gone: “I make a point of the children going to Sunday school, +and I like Betty to go to church. I think women ought to be religious. I +don’t believe myself, but I like women and children to.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, strait-laced in matters of truth, was a little shocked by this airy +attitude. +</p> + +<p> +“But how can you look on while your children are being taught things +which you don’t think are true?” +</p> + +<p> +“If they’re beautiful I don’t much mind if they’re not +true. It’s asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason +as well as to your sense of the aesthetic. I wanted Betty to become a Roman +Catholic, I should have liked to see her converted in a crown of paper flowers, +but she’s hopelessly Protestant. Besides, religion is a matter of +temperament; you will believe anything if you have the religious turn of mind, +and if you haven’t it doesn’t matter what beliefs were instilled +into you, you will grow out of them. Perhaps religion is the best school of +morality. It is like one of those drugs you gentlemen use in medicine which +carries another in solution: it is of no efficacy in itself, but enables the +other to be absorbed. You take your morality because it is combined with +religion; you lose the religion and the morality stays behind. A man is more +likely to be a good man if he has learned goodness through the love of God than +through a perusal of Herbert Spencer.” +</p> + +<p> +This was contrary to all Philip’s ideas. He still looked upon +Christianity as a degrading bondage that must be cast away at any cost; it was +connected subconsciously in his mind with the dreary services in the cathedral +at Tercanbury, and the long hours of boredom in the cold church at Blackstable; +and the morality of which Athelny spoke was to him no more than a part of the +religion which a halting intelligence preserved, when it had laid aside the +beliefs which alone made it reasonable. But while he was meditating a reply +Athelny, more interested in hearing himself speak than in discussion, broke +into a tirade upon Roman Catholicism. For him it was an essential part of +Spain; and Spain meant much to him, because he had escaped to it from the +conventionality which during his married life he had found so irksome. With +large gestures and in the emphatic tone which made what he said so striking, +Athelny described to Philip the Spanish cathedrals with their vast dark spaces, +the massive gold of the altar-pieces, and the sumptuous iron-work, gilt and +faded, the air laden with incense, the silence: Philip almost saw the Canons in +their short surplices of lawn, the acolytes in red, passing from the sacristy +to the choir; he almost heard the monotonous chanting of vespers. The names +which Athelny mentioned, Avila, Tarragona, Saragossa, Segovia, Cordova, were +like trumpets in his heart. He seemed to see the great gray piles of granite +set in old Spanish towns amid a landscape tawny, wild, and windswept. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve always thought I should love to go to Seville,” he said +casually, when Athelny, with one hand dramatically uplifted, paused for a +moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Seville!” cried Athelny. “No, no, don’t go there. +Seville: it brings to the mind girls dancing with castanets, singing in gardens +by the Guadalquivir, bull-fights, orange-blossom, mantillas, mantones de +Manila. It is the Spain of comic opera and Montmartre. Its facile charm can +offer permanent entertainment only to an intelligence which is superficial. +Theophile Gautier got out of Seville all that it has to offer. We who come +after him can only repeat his sensations. He put large fat hands on the obvious +and there is nothing but the obvious there; and it is all finger-marked and +frayed. Murillo is its painter.” +</p> + +<p> +Athelny got up from his chair, walked over to the Spanish cabinet, let down the +front with its great gilt hinges and gorgeous lock, and displayed a series of +little drawers. He took out a bundle of photographs. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know El Greco?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I remember one of the men in Paris was awfully impressed by +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“El Greco was the painter of Toledo. Betty couldn’t find the +photograph I wanted to show you. It’s a picture that El Greco painted of +the city he loved, and it’s truer than any photograph. Come and sit at +the table.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip dragged his chair forward, and Athelny set the photograph before him. He +looked at it curiously, for a long time, in silence. He stretched out his hand +for other photographs, and Athelny passed them to him. He had never before seen +the work of that enigmatic master; and at the first glance he was bothered by +the arbitrary drawing: the figures were extraordinarily elongated; the heads +were very small; the attitudes were extravagant. This was not realism, and yet, +and yet even in the photographs you had the impression of a troubling reality. +Athelny was describing eagerly, with vivid phrases, but Philip only heard +vaguely what he said. He was puzzled. He was curiously moved. These pictures +seemed to offer some meaning to him, but he did not know what the meaning was. +There were portraits of men with large, melancholy eyes which seemed to say you +knew not what; there were long monks in the Franciscan habit or in the +Dominican, with distraught faces, making gestures whose sense escaped you; +there was an Assumption of the Virgin; there was a Crucifixion in which the +painter by some magic of feeling had been able to suggest that the flesh of +Christ’s dead body was not human flesh only but divine; and there was an +Ascension in which the Saviour seemed to surge up towards the empyrean and yet +to stand upon the air as steadily as though it were solid ground: the uplifted +arms of the Apostles, the sweep of their draperies, their ecstatic gestures, +gave an impression of exultation and of holy joy. The background of nearly all +was the sky by night, the dark night of the soul, with wild clouds swept by +strange winds of hell and lit luridly by an uneasy moon. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen that sky in Toledo over and over again,” said +Athelny. “I have an idea that when first El Greco came to the city it was +by such a night, and it made so vehement an impression upon him that he could +never get away from it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip remembered how Clutton had been affected by this strange master, whose +work he now saw for the first time. He thought that Clutton was the most +interesting of all the people he had known in Paris. His sardonic manner, his +hostile aloofness, had made it difficult to know him; but it seemed to Philip, +looking back, that there had been in him a tragic force, which sought vainly to +express itself in painting. He was a man of unusual character, mystical after +the fashion of a time that had no leaning to mysticism, who was impatient with +life because he found himself unable to say the things which the obscure +impulses of his heart suggested. His intellect was not fashioned to the uses of +the spirit. It was not surprising that he felt a deep sympathy with the Greek +who had devised a new technique to express the yearnings of his soul. Philip +looked again at the series of portraits of Spanish gentlemen, with ruffles and +pointed beards, their faces pale against the sober black of their clothes and +the darkness of the background. El Greco was the painter of the soul; and these +gentlemen, wan and wasted, not by exhaustion but by restraint, with their +tortured minds, seem to walk unaware of the beauty of the world; for their eyes +look only in their hearts, and they are dazzled by the glory of the unseen. No +painter has shown more pitilessly that the world is but a place of passage. The +souls of the men he painted speak their strange longings through their eyes: +their senses are miraculously acute, not for sounds and odours and colour, but +for the very subtle sensations of the soul. The noble walks with the monkish +heart within him, and his eyes see things which saints in their cells see too, +and he is unastounded. His lips are not lips that smile. +</p> + +<p> +Philip, silent still, returned to the photograph of Toledo, which seemed to him +the most arresting picture of them all. He could not take his eyes off it. He +felt strangely that he was on the threshold of some new discovery in life. He +was tremulous with a sense of adventure. He thought for an instant of the love +that had consumed him: love seemed very trivial beside the excitement which now +leaped in his heart. The picture he looked at was a long one, with houses +crowded upon a hill; in one corner a boy was holding a large map of the town; +in another was a classical figure representing the river Tagus; and in the sky +was the Virgin surrounded by angels. It was a landscape alien to all +Philip’s notion, for he had lived in circles that worshipped exact +realism; and yet here again, strangely to himself, he felt a reality greater +than any achieved by the masters in whose steps humbly he had sought to walk. +He heard Athelny say that the representation was so precise that when the +citizens of Toledo came to look at the picture they recognised their houses. +The painter had painted exactly what he saw but he had seen with the eyes of +the spirit. There was something unearthly in that city of pale gray. It was a +city of the soul seen by a wan light that was neither that of night nor day. It +stood on a green hill, but of a green not of this world, and it was surrounded +by massive walls and bastions to be stormed by no machines or engines of +man’s invention, but by prayer and fasting, by contrite sighs and by +mortifications of the flesh. It was a stronghold of God. Those gray houses were +made of no stone known to masons, there was something terrifying in their +aspect, and you did not know what men might live in them. You might walk +through the streets and be unamazed to find them all deserted, and yet not +empty; for you felt a presence invisible and yet manifest to every inner sense. +It was a mystical city in which the imagination faltered like one who steps out +of the light into darkness; the soul walked naked to and fro, knowing the +unknowable, and conscious strangely of experience, intimate but inexpressible, +of the absolute. And without surprise, in that blue sky, real with a reality +that not the eye but the soul confesses, with its rack of light clouds driven +by strange breezes, like the cries and the sighs of lost souls, you saw the +Blessed Virgin with a gown of red and a cloak of blue, surrounded by winged +angels. Philip felt that the inhabitants of that city would have seen the +apparition without astonishment, reverent and thankful, and have gone their +ways. +</p> + +<p> +Athelny spoke of the mystical writers of Spain, of Teresa de Avila, San Juan de +la Cruz, Fray Luis de Leon; in all of them was that passion for the unseen +which Philip felt in the pictures of El Greco: they seemed to have the power to +touch the incorporeal and see the invisible. They were Spaniards of their age, +in whom were tremulous all the mighty exploits of a great nation: their fancies +were rich with the glories of America and the green islands of the Caribbean +Sea; in their veins was the power that had come from age-long battling with the +Moor; they were proud, for they were masters of the world; and they felt in +themselves the wide distances, the tawny wastes, the snow-capped mountains of +Castile, the sunshine and the blue sky, and the flowering plains of Andalusia. +Life was passionate and manifold, and because it offered so much they felt a +restless yearning for something more; because they were human they were +unsatisfied; and they threw this eager vitality of theirs into a vehement +striving after the ineffable. Athelny was not displeased to find someone to +whom he could read the translations with which for some time he had amused his +leisure; and in his fine, vibrating voice he recited the canticle of the Soul +and Christ her lover, the lovely poem which begins with the words en una noche +oscura, and the noche serena of Fray Luis de Leon. He had translated them quite +simply, not without skill, and he had found words which at all events suggested +the rough-hewn grandeur of the original. The pictures of El Greco explained +them, and they explained the pictures. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had cultivated a certain disdain for idealism. He had always had a +passion for life, and the idealism he had come across seemed to him for the +most part a cowardly shrinking from it. The idealist withdrew himself, because +he could not suffer the jostling of the human crowd; he had not the strength to +fight and so called the battle vulgar; he was vain, and since his fellows would +not take him at his own estimate, consoled himself with despising his fellows. +For Philip his type was Hayward, fair, languid, too fat now and rather bald, +still cherishing the remains of his good looks and still delicately proposing +to do exquisite things in the uncertain future; and at the back of this were +whiskey and vulgar amours of the street. It was in reaction from what Hayward +represented that Philip clamoured for life as it stood; sordidness, vice, +deformity, did not offend him; he declared that he wanted man in his nakedness; +and he rubbed his hands when an instance came before him of meanness, cruelty, +selfishness, or lust: that was the real thing. In Paris he had learned that +there was neither ugliness nor beauty, but only truth: the search after beauty +was sentimental. Had he not painted an advertisement of chocolat Menier in a +landscape in order to escape from the tyranny of prettiness? +</p> + +<p> +But here he seemed to divine something new. He had been coming to it, all +hesitating, for some time, but only now was conscious of the fact; he felt +himself on the brink of a discovery. He felt vaguely that here was something +better than the realism which he had adored; but certainly it was not the +bloodless idealism which stepped aside from life in weakness; it was too +strong; it was virile; it accepted life in all its vivacity, ugliness and +beauty, squalor and heroism; it was realism still; but it was realism carried +to some higher pitch, in which facts were transformed by the more vivid light +in which they were seen. He seemed to see things more profoundly through the +grave eyes of those dead noblemen of Castile; and the gestures of the saints, +which at first had seemed wild and distorted, appeared to have some mysterious +significance. But he could not tell what that significance was. It was like a +message which it was very important for him to receive, but it was given him in +an unknown tongue, and he could not understand. He was always seeking for a +meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it +was obscure and vague. He was profoundly troubled. He saw what looked like the +truth as by flashes of lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a +mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, +but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as +passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the +inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the +life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LXXXIX</h2> + +<p> +The conversation between Philip and Athelny was broken into by a clatter up the +stairs. Athelny opened the door for the children coming back from Sunday +school, and with laughter and shouting they came in. Gaily he asked them what +they had learned. Sally appeared for a moment, with instructions from her +mother that father was to amuse the children while she got tea ready; and +Athelny began to tell them one of Hans Andersen’s stories. They were not +shy children, and they quickly came to the conclusion that Philip was not +formidable. Jane came and stood by him and presently settled herself on his +knees. It was the first time that Philip in his lonely life had been present in +a family circle: his eyes smiled as they rested on the fair children engrossed +in the fairy tale. The life of his new friend, eccentric as it appeared at +first glance, seemed now to have the beauty of perfect naturalness. Sally came +in once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then, children, tea’s ready,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Jane slipped off Philip’s knees, and they all went back to the kitchen. +Sally began to lay the cloth on the long Spanish table. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother says, shall she come and have tea with you?” she asked. +“I can give the children their tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell your mother that we shall be proud and honoured if she will favour +us with her company,” said Athelny. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Philip that he could never say anything without an oratorical +flourish. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll lay for her,” said Sally. +</p> + +<p> +She came back again in a moment with a tray on which were a cottage loaf, a +slab of butter, and a jar of strawberry jam. While she placed the things on the +table her father chaffed her. He said it was quite time she was walking out; he +told Philip that she was very proud, and would have nothing to do with +aspirants to that honour who lined up at the door, two by two, outside the +Sunday school and craved the honour of escorting her home. +</p> + +<p> +“You do talk, father,” said Sally, with her slow, good-natured +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t think to look at her that a tailor’s assistant +has enlisted in the army because she would not say how d’you do to him +and an electrical engineer, an electrical engineer, mind you, has taken to +drink because she refused to share her hymn-book with him in church. I shudder +to think what will happen when she puts her hair up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother’ll bring the tea along herself,” said Sally. +</p> + +<p> +“Sally never pays any attention to me,” laughed Athelny, looking at +her with fond, proud eyes. “She goes about her business indifferent to +wars, revolutions, and cataclysms. What a wife she’ll make to an honest +man!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Athelny brought in the tea. She sat down and proceeded to cut bread and +butter. It amused Philip to see that she treated her husband as though he were +a child. She spread jam for him and cut up the bread and butter into convenient +slices for him to eat. She had taken off her hat; and in her Sunday dress, +which seemed a little tight for her, she looked like one of the farmers’ +wives whom Philip used to call on sometimes with his uncle when he was a small +boy. Then he knew why the sound of her voice was familiar to him. She spoke +just like the people round Blackstable. +</p> + +<p> +“What part of the country d’you come from?” he asked her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a Kentish woman. I come from Ferne.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought as much. My uncle’s Vicar of Blackstable.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a funny thing now,” she said. “I was wondering +in Church just now whether you was any connection of Mr. Carey. Many’s +the time I’ve seen ’im. A cousin of mine married Mr. Barker of +Roxley Farm, over by Blackstable Church, and I used to go and stay there often +when I was a girl. Isn’t that a funny thing now?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with a new interest, and a brightness came into her faded +eyes. She asked him whether he knew Ferne. It was a pretty village about ten +miles across country from Blackstable, and the Vicar had come over sometimes to +Blackstable for the harvest thanksgiving. She mentioned names of various +farmers in the neighbourhood. She was delighted to talk again of the country in +which her youth was spent, and it was a pleasure to her to recall scenes and +people that had remained in her memory with the tenacity peculiar to her class. +It gave Philip a queer sensation too. A breath of the country-side seemed to be +wafted into that panelled room in the middle of London. He seemed to see the +fat Kentish fields with their stately elms; and his nostrils dilated with the +scent of the air; it is laden with the salt of the North Sea, and that makes it +keen and sharp. +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not leave the Athelnys’ till ten o’clock. The children +came in to say good-night at eight and quite naturally put up their faces for +Philip to kiss. His heart went out to them. Sally only held out her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Sally never kisses gentlemen till she’s seen them twice,” +said her father. +</p> + +<p> +“You must ask me again then,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t take any notice of what father says,” remarked +Sally, with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a most self-possessed young woman,” added her parent. +</p> + +<p> +They had supper of bread and cheese and beer, while Mrs. Athelny was putting +the children to bed; and when Philip went into the kitchen to bid her +good-night (she had been sitting there, resting herself and reading The Weekly +Despatch) she invited him cordially to come again. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s always a good dinner on Sundays so long as Athelny’s +in work,” she said, “and it’s a charity to come and talk to +him.” +</p> + +<p> +On the following Saturday Philip received a postcard from Athelny saying that +they were expecting him to dinner next day; but fearing their means were not +such that Mr. Athelny would desire him to accept, Philip wrote back that he +would only come to tea. He bought a large plum cake so that his entertainment +should cost nothing. He found the whole family glad to see him, and the cake +completed his conquest of the children. He insisted that they should all have +tea together in the kitchen, and the meal was noisy and hilarious. +</p> + +<p> +Soon Philip got into the habit of going to Athelny’s every Sunday. He +became a great favourite with the children, because he was simple and +unaffected and because it was so plain that he was fond of them. As soon as +they heard his ring at the door one of them popped a head out of window to make +sure it was he, and then they all rushed downstairs tumultuously to let him in. +They flung themselves into his arms. At tea they fought for the privilege of +sitting next to him. Soon they began to call him Uncle Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Athelny was very communicative, and little by little Philip learned the various +stages of his life. He had followed many occupations, and it occurred to Philip +that he managed to make a mess of everything he attempted. He had been on a tea +plantation in Ceylon and a traveller in America for Italian wines; his +secretaryship of the water company in Toledo had lasted longer than any of his +employments; he had been a journalist and for some time had worked as +police-court reporter for an evening paper; he had been sub-editor of a paper +in the Midlands and editor of another on the Riviera. From all his occupations +he had gathered amusing anecdotes, which he told with a keen pleasure in his +own powers of entertainment. He had read a great deal, chiefly delighting in +books which were unusual; and he poured forth his stores of abstruse knowledge +with child-like enjoyment of the amazement of his hearers. Three or four years +before abject poverty had driven him to take the job of press-representative to +a large firm of drapers; and though he felt the work unworthy his abilities, +which he rated highly, the firmness of his wife and the needs of his family had +made him stick to it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XC</h2> + +<p> +When he left the Athelnys’ Philip walked down Chancery Lane and along the +Strand to get a ’bus at the top of Parliament Street. One Sunday, when he +had known them about six weeks, he did this as usual, but he found the +Kennington ’bus full. It was June, but it had rained during the day and +the night was raw and cold. He walked up to Piccadilly Circus in order to get a +seat; the ’bus waited at the fountain, and when it arrived there seldom +had more than two or three people in it. This service ran every quarter of an +hour, and he had some time to wait. He looked idly at the crowd. The +public-houses were closing, and there were many people about. His mind was busy +with the ideas Athelny had the charming gift of suggesting. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly his heart stood still. He saw Mildred. He had not thought of her for +weeks. She was crossing over from the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and stopped +at the shelter till a string of cabs passed by. She was watching her +opportunity and had no eyes for anything else. She wore a large black straw hat +with a mass of feathers on it and a black silk dress; at that time it was +fashionable for women to wear trains; the road was clear, and Mildred crossed, +her skirt trailing on the ground, and walked down Piccadilly. Philip, his heart +beating excitedly, followed her. He did not wish to speak to her, but he +wondered where she was going at that hour; he wanted to get a look at her face. +She walked slowly along and turned down Air Street and so got through into +Regent Street. She walked up again towards the Circus. Philip was puzzled. He +could not make out what she was doing. Perhaps she was waiting for somebody, +and he felt a great curiosity to know who it was. She overtook a short man in a +bowler hat, who was strolling very slowly in the same direction as herself; she +gave him a sidelong glance as she passed. She walked a few steps more till she +came to Swan and Edgar’s, then stopped and waited, facing the road. When +the man came up she smiled. The man stared at her for a moment, turned away his +head, and sauntered on. Then Philip understood. +</p> + +<p> +He was overwhelmed with horror. For a moment he felt such a weakness in his +legs that he could hardly stand; then he walked after her quickly; he touched +her on the arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Mildred.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned round with a violent start. He thought that she reddened, but in the +obscurity he could not see very well. For a while they stood and looked at one +another without speaking. At last she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy seeing you!” +</p> + +<p> +He did not know what to answer; he was horribly shaken; and the phrases that +chased one another through his brain seemed incredibly melodramatic. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awful,” he gasped, almost to himself. +</p> + +<p> +She did not say anything more, she turned away from him, and looked down at the +pavement. He felt that his face was distorted with misery. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t there anywhere we can go and talk?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to talk,” she said sullenly. “Leave me +alone, can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +The thought struck him that perhaps she was in urgent need of money and could +not afford to go away at that hour. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a couple of sovereigns on me if you’re hard +up,” he blurted out. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean. I was just walking along here on my +way back to my lodgings. I expected to meet one of the girls from where I +work.” +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake don’t lie now,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Then he saw that she was crying, and he repeated his question. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t we go and talk somewhere? Can’t I come back to your +rooms?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you can’t do that,” she sobbed. “I’m not +allowed to take gentlemen in there. If you like I’ll meet you +tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +He felt certain that she would not keep an appointment. He was not going to let +her go. +</p> + +<p> +“No. You must take me somewhere now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there is a room I know, but they’ll charge six shillings for +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind that. Where is it?” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him the address, and he called a cab. They drove to a shabby street +beyond the British Museum in the neighbourhood of the Gray’s Inn Road, +and she stopped the cab at the corner. +</p> + +<p> +“They don’t like you to drive up to the door,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +They were the first words either of them had spoken since getting into the cab. +They walked a few yards and Mildred knocked three times, sharply, at a door. +Philip noticed in the fanlight a cardboard on which was an announcement that +apartments were to let. The door was opened quietly, and an elderly, tall woman +let them in. She gave Philip a stare and then spoke to Mildred in an undertone. +Mildred led Philip along a passage to a room at the back. It was quite dark; +she asked him for a match, and lit the gas; there was no globe, and the gas +flared shrilly. Philip saw that he was in a dingy little bed-room with a suite +of furniture, painted to look like pine much too large for it; the lace +curtains were very dirty; the grate was hidden by a large paper fan. Mildred +sank on the chair which stood by the side of the chimney-piece. Philip sat on +the edge of the bed. He felt ashamed. He saw now that Mildred’s cheeks +were thick with rouge, her eyebrows were blackened; but she looked thin and +ill, and the red on her cheeks exaggerated the greenish pallor of her skin. She +stared at the paper fan in a listless fashion. Philip could not think what to +say, and he had a choking in his throat as if he were going to cry. He covered +his eyes with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“My God, it is awful,” he groaned. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you’ve got to fuss about. I should have +thought you’d have been rather pleased.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not answer, and in a moment she broke into a sob. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think I do it because I like it, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear,” he cried. “I’m so sorry, I’m so +awfully sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do me a fat lot of good.” +</p> + +<p> +Again Philip found nothing to say. He was desperately afraid of saying anything +which she might take for a reproach or a sneer. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the baby?” he asked at last. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got her with me in London. I hadn’t got the money to +keep her on at Brighton, so I had to take her. I’ve got a room up +Highbury way. I told them I was on the stage. It’s a long way to have to +come down to the West End every day, but it’s a rare job to find anyone +who’ll let to ladies at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t they take you back at the shop?” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t get any work to do anywhere. I walked my legs off +looking for work. I did get a job once, but I was off for a week because I was +queer, and when I went back they said they didn’t want me any more. You +can’t blame them either, can you? Them places, they can’t afford to +have girls that aren’t strong.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t look very well now,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t fit to come out tonight, but I couldn’t help +myself, I wanted the money. I wrote to Emil and told him I was broke, but he +never even answered the letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“You might have written to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t like to, not after what happened, and I didn’t want +you to know I was in difficulties. I shouldn’t have been surprised if +you’d just told me I’d only got what I deserved.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know me very well, do you, even now?” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment he remembered all the anguish he had suffered on her account, and +he was sick with the recollection of his pain. But it was no more than +recollection. When he looked at her he knew that he no longer loved her. He was +very sorry for her, but he was glad to be free. Watching her gravely, he asked +himself why he had been so besotted with passion for her. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a gentleman in every sense of the word,” she said. +“You’re the only one I’ve ever met.” She paused for a +minute and then flushed. “I hate asking you, Philip, but can you spare me +anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s lucky I’ve got some money on me. I’m afraid +I’ve only got two pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave her the sovereigns. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll pay you back, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right,” he smiled. “You needn’t +worry.” +</p> + +<p> +He had said nothing that he wanted to say. They had talked as if the whole +thing were natural; and it looked as though she would go now, back to the +horror of her life, and he would be able to do nothing to prevent it. She had +got up to take the money, and they were both standing. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I keeping you?” she asked. “I suppose you want to be +getting home.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m in no hurry,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad to have a chance of sitting down.” +</p> + +<p> +Those words, with all they implied, tore his heart, and it was dreadfully +painful to see the weary way in which she sank back into the chair. The silence +lasted so long that Philip in his embarrassment lit a cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very good of you not to have said anything disagreeable to +me, Philip. I thought you might say I didn’t know what all.” +</p> + +<p> +He saw that she was crying again. He remembered how she had come to him when +Emil Miller had deserted her and how she had wept. The recollection of her +suffering and of his own humiliation seemed to render more overwhelming the +compassion he felt now. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could only get out of it!” she moaned. “I hate it so. +I’m unfit for the life, I’m not the sort of girl for that. +I’d do anything to get away from it, I’d be a servant if I could. +Oh, I wish I was dead.” +</p> + +<p> +And in pity for herself she broke down now completely. She sobbed hysterically, +and her thin body was shaken. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you don’t know what it is. Nobody knows till they’ve +done it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip could not bear to see her cry. He was tortured by the horror of her +position. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor child,” he whispered. “Poor child.” +</p> + +<p> +He was deeply moved. Suddenly he had an inspiration. It filled him with a +perfect ecstasy of happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, if you want to get away from it, I’ve got an idea. +I’m frightfully hard up just now, I’ve got to be as economical as I +can; but I’ve got a sort of little flat now in Kennington and I’ve +got a spare room. If you like you and the baby can come and live there. I pay a +woman three and sixpence a week to keep the place clean and to do a little +cooking for me. You could do that and your food wouldn’t come to much +more than the money I should save on her. It doesn’t cost any more to +feed two than one, and I don’t suppose the baby eats much.” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped crying and looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say that you could take me back after all +that’s happened?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed a little in embarrassment at what he had to say. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want you to mistake me. I’m just giving you a room +which doesn’t cost me anything and your food. I don’t expect +anything more from you than that you should do exactly the same as the woman I +have in does. Except for that I don’t want anything from you at all. I +daresay you can cook well enough for that.” +</p> + +<p> +She sprang to her feet and was about to come towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“You are good to me, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, please stop where you are,” he said hurriedly, putting out his +hand as though to push her away. +</p> + +<p> +He did not know why it was, but he could not bear the thought that she should +touch him. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to be anything more than a friend to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are good to me,” she repeated. “You are good to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does that mean you’ll come?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I’d do anything to get away from this. You’ll never +regret what you’ve done, Philip, never. When can I come, Philip?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better come tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she burst into tears again. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth are you crying for now?” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so grateful to you. I don’t know how I can ever make it +up to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right. You’d better go home now.” +</p> + +<p> +He wrote out the address and told her that if she came at half past five he +would be ready for her. It was so late that he had to walk home, but it did not +seem a long way, for he was intoxicated with delight; he seemed to walk on air. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCI</h2> + +<p> +Next day he got up early to make the room ready for Mildred. He told the woman +who had looked after him that he would not want her any more. Mildred came +about six, and Philip, who was watching from the window, went down to let her +in and help her to bring up the luggage: it consisted now of no more than three +large parcels wrapped in brown paper, for she had been obliged to sell +everything that was not absolutely needful. She wore the same black silk dress +she had worn the night before, and, though she had now no rouge on her cheeks, +there was still about her eyes the black which remained after a perfunctory +wash in the morning: it made her look very ill. She was a pathetic figure as +she stepped out of the cab with the baby in her arms. She seemed a little shy, +and they found nothing but commonplace things to say to one another. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’ve got here all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never lived in this part of London before.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip showed her the room. It was that in which Cronshaw had died. Philip, +though he thought it absurd, had never liked the idea of going back to it; and +since Cronshaw’s death he had remained in the little room, sleeping on a +fold-up bed, into which he had first moved in order to make his friend +comfortable. The baby was sleeping placidly. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t recognise her, I expect,” said Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve not seen her since we took her down to Brighton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall I put her? She’s so heavy I can’t carry her very +long.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I haven’t got a cradle,” said Philip, with +a nervous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she’ll sleep with me. She always does.” +</p> + +<p> +Mildred put the baby in an arm-chair and looked round the room. She recognised +most of the things which she had known in his old diggings. Only one thing was +new, a head and shoulders of Philip which Lawson had painted at the end of the +preceding summer; it hung over the chimney-piece; Mildred looked at it +critically. +</p> + +<p> +“In some ways I like it and in some ways I don’t. I think +you’re better looking than that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Things are looking up,” laughed Philip. “You’ve never +told me I was good-looking before.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not one to worry myself about a man’s looks. I +don’t like good-looking men. They’re too conceited for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes travelled round the room in an instinctive search for a looking-glass, +but there was none; she put up her hand and patted her large fringe. +</p> + +<p> +“What’ll the other people in the house say to my being here?” +she asked suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there’s only a man and his wife living here. He’s out +all day, and I never see her except on Saturday to pay my rent. They keep +entirely to themselves. I’ve not spoken two words to either of them since +I came.” +</p> + +<p> +Mildred went into the bedroom to undo her things and put them away. Philip +tried to read, but his spirits were too high: he leaned back in his chair, +smoking a cigarette, and with smiling eyes looked at the sleeping child. He +felt very happy. He was quite sure that he was not at all in love with Mildred. +He was surprised that the old feeling had left him so completely; he discerned +in himself a faint physical repulsion from her; and he thought that if he +touched her it would give him goose-flesh. He could not understand himself. +Presently, knocking at the door, she came in again. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you needn’t knock,” he said. “Have you made the +tour of the mansion?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the smallest kitchen I’ve ever seen.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find it large enough to cook our sumptuous repasts,” +he retorted lightly. +</p> + +<p> +“I see there’s nothing in. I’d better go out and get +something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but I venture to remind you that we must be devilish +economical.” +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I get for supper?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better get what you think you can cook,” laughed +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He gave her some money and she went out. She came in half an hour later and put +her purchases on the table. She was out of breath from climbing the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you are anaemic,” said Philip. “I’ll have to +dose you with Blaud’s Pills.” +</p> + +<p> +“It took me some time to find the shops. I bought some liver. +That’s tasty, isn’t it? And you can’t eat much of it, so +it’s more economical than butcher’s meat.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a gas stove in the kitchen, and when she had put the liver on, +Mildred came into the sitting-room to lay the cloth. +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you only laying one place?” asked Philip. +“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” +</p> + +<p> +Mildred flushed. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you mightn’t like me to have my meals with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why on earth not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m only a servant, aren’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be an ass. How can you be so silly?” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled, but her humility gave him a curious twist in his heart. Poor thing! +He remembered what she had been when first he knew her. He hesitated for an +instant. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think I’m conferring any benefit on you,” he +said. “It’s simply a business arrangement, I’m giving you +board and lodging in return for your work. You don’t owe me anything. And +there’s nothing humiliating to you in it.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, but tears rolled heavily down her cheeks. Philip knew from +his experience at the hospital that women of her class looked upon service as +degrading: he could not help feeling a little impatient with her; but he blamed +himself, for it was clear that she was tired and ill. He got up and helped her +to lay another place at the table. The baby was awake now, and Mildred had +prepared some Mellin’s Food for it. The liver and bacon were ready and +they sat down. For economy’s sake Philip had given up drinking anything +but water, but he had in the house a half a bottle of whiskey, and he thought a +little would do Mildred good. He did his best to make the supper pass +cheerfully, but Mildred was subdued and exhausted. When they had finished she +got up to put the baby to bed. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’ll do well to turn in early yourself,” said +Philip. “You look absolute done up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I will after I’ve washed up.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip lit his pipe and began to read. It was pleasant to hear somebody moving +about in the next room. Sometimes his loneliness had oppressed him. Mildred +came in to clear the table, and he heard the clatter of plates as she washed +up. Philip smiled as he thought how characteristic it was of her that she +should do all that in a black silk dress. But he had work to do, and he brought +his book up to the table. He was reading Osler’s Medicine, which had +recently taken the place in the students’ favour of Taylor’s work, +for many years the text-book most in use. Presently Mildred came in, rolling +down her sleeves. Philip gave her a casual glance, but did not move; the +occasion was curious, and he felt a little nervous. He feared that Mildred +might imagine he was going to make a nuisance of himself, and he did not quite +know how without brutality to reassure her. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, I’ve got a lecture at nine, so I should want breakfast +at a quarter past eight. Can you manage that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes. Why, when I was in Parliament Street I used to catch the +eight-twelve from Herne Hill every morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll find your room comfortable. You’ll be a +different woman tomorrow after a long night in bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you work till late?” +</p> + +<p> +“I generally work till about eleven or half-past.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll say good-night then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +The table was between them. He did not offer to shake hands with her. She shut +the door quietly. He heard her moving about in the bed-room, and in a little +while he heard the creaking of the bed as she got in. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCII</h2> + +<p> +The following day was Tuesday. Philip as usual hurried through his breakfast +and dashed off to get to his lecture at nine. He had only time to exchange a +few words with Mildred. When he came back in the evening he found her seated at +the window, darning his socks. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you are industrious,” he smiled. “What have you been +doing with yourself all day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I gave the place a good cleaning and then I took baby out for a +little.” +</p> + +<p> +She was wearing an old black dress, the same as she had worn as uniform when +she served in the tea-shop; it was shabby, but she looked better in it than in +the silk of the day before. The baby was sitting on the floor. She looked up at +Philip with large, mysterious eyes and broke into a laugh when he sat down +beside her and began playing with her bare toes. The afternoon sun came into +the room and shed a mellow light. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather jolly to come back and find someone about the place. A +woman and a baby make very good decoration in a room.” +</p> + +<p> +He had gone to the hospital dispensary and got a bottle of Blaud’s Pills, +He gave them to Mildred and told her she must take them after each meal. It was +a remedy she was used to, for she had taken it off and on ever since she was +sixteen. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure Lawson would love that green skin of yours,” said +Philip. “He’d say it was so paintable, but I’m terribly +matter of fact nowadays, and I shan’t be happy till you’re as pink +and white as a milkmaid.” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel better already.” +</p> + +<p> +After a frugal supper Philip filled his pouch with tobacco and put on his hat. +It was on Tuesdays that he generally went to the tavern in Beak Street, and he +was glad that this day came so soon after Mildred’s arrival, for he +wanted to make his relations with her perfectly clear. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going out?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, on Tuesdays I give myself a night off. I shall see you tomorrow. +Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip always went to the tavern with a sense of pleasure. Macalister, the +philosophic stockbroker, was generally there and glad to argue upon any subject +under the sun; Hayward came regularly when he was in London; and though he and +Macalister disliked one another they continued out of habit to meet on that one +evening in the week. Macalister thought Hayward a poor creature, and sneered at +his delicacies of sentiment: he asked satirically about Hayward’s +literary work and received with scornful smiles his vague suggestions of future +masterpieces; their arguments were often heated; but the punch was good, and +they were both fond of it; towards the end of the evening they generally +composed their differences and thought each other capital fellows. This evening +Philip found them both there, and Lawson also; Lawson came more seldom now that +he was beginning to know people in London and went out to dinner a good deal. +They were all on excellent terms with themselves, for Macalister had given them +a good thing on the Stock Exchange, and Hayward and Lawson had made fifty +pounds apiece. It was a great thing for Lawson, who was extravagant and earned +little money: he had arrived at that stage of the portrait-painter’s +career when he was noticed a good deal by the critics and found a number of +aristocratic ladies who were willing to allow him to paint them for nothing (it +advertised them both, and gave the great ladies quite an air of patronesses of +the arts); but he very seldom got hold of the solid philistine who was ready to +pay good money for a portrait of his wife. Lawson was brimming over with +satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the most ripping way of making money that I’ve ever +struck,” he cried. “I didn’t have to put my hand in my pocket +for sixpence.” +</p> + +<p> +“You lost something by not being here last Tuesday, young man,” +said Macalister to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“My God, why didn’t you write to me?” said Philip. “If +you only knew how useful a hundred pounds would be to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there wasn’t time for that. One has to be on the spot. I heard +of a good thing last Tuesday, and I asked these fellows if they’d like to +have a flutter, I bought them a thousand shares on Wednesday morning, and there +was a rise in the afternoon so I sold them at once. I made fifty pounds for +each of them and a couple of hundred for myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was sick with envy. He had recently sold the last mortgage in which his +small fortune had been invested and now had only six hundred pounds left. He +was panic-stricken sometimes when he thought of the future. He had still to +keep himself for two years before he could be qualified, and then he meant to +try for hospital appointments, so that he could not expect to earn anything for +three years at least. With the most rigid economy he would not have more than a +hundred pounds left then. It was very little to have as a stand-by in case he +was ill and could not earn money or found himself at any time without work. A +lucky gamble would make all the difference to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” said Macalister. +“Something is sure to turn up soon. There’ll be a boom in South +Africans again one of these days, and then I’ll see what I can do for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Macalister was in the Kaffir market and often told them stories of the sudden +fortunes that had been made in the great boom of a year or two back. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t forget next time.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat on talking till nearly midnight, and Philip, who lived furthest off, +was the first to go. If he did not catch the last tram he had to walk, and that +made him very late. As it was he did not reach home till nearly half past +twelve. When he got upstairs he was surprised to find Mildred still sitting in +his arm-chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Why on earth aren’t you in bed?” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t sleepy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to go to bed all the same. It would rest you.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not move. He noticed that since supper she had changed into her black +silk dress. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d rather wait up for you in case you wanted +anything.” +</p> + +<p> + She looked at him, and the shadow of a smile played upon her thin pale lips. + Philip was not sure whether he understood or not. He was slightly embarrassed, + but assumed a cheerful, matter-of-fact air. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very nice of you, but it’s very naughty also. Run off +to bed as fast as you can, or you won’t be able to get up tomorrow +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t feel like going to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” he said coldly. +</p> + +<p> +She got up, a little sulkily, and went into her room. He smiled when he heard +her lock the door loudly. +</p> + +<p> +The next few days passed without incident. Mildred settled down in her new +surroundings. When Philip hurried off after breakfast she had the whole morning +to do the housework. They ate very simply, but she liked to take a long time to +buy the few things they needed; she could not be bothered to cook anything for +her dinner, but made herself some cocoa and ate bread and butter; then she took +the baby out in the gocart, and when she came in spent the rest of the +afternoon in idleness. She was tired out, and it suited her to do so little. +She made friends with Philip’s forbidding landlady over the rent, which +he left with Mildred to pay, and within a week was able to tell him more about +his neighbours than he had learned in a year. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a very nice woman,” said Mildred. “Quite the +lady. I told her we was married.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you think that was necessary?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I had to tell her something. It looks so funny me being here and +not married to you. I didn’t know what she’d think of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose she believed you for a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“That she did, I lay. I told her we’d been married two +years—I had to say that, you know, because of baby—only your people +wouldn’t hear of it, because you was only a student”—she +pronounced it stoodent—“and so we had to keep it a secret, but +they’d given way now and we were all going down to stay with them in the +summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a past mistress of the cock-and-bull story,” said +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He was vaguely irritated that Mildred still had this passion for telling fibs. +In the last two years she had learnt nothing. But he shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“When all’s said and done,” he reflected, “she +hasn’t had much chance.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a beautiful evening, warm and cloudless, and the people of South London +seemed to have poured out into the streets. There was that restlessness in the +air which seizes the cockney sometimes when a turn in the weather calls him +into the open. After Mildred had cleared away the supper she went and stood at +the window. The street noises came up to them, noises of people calling to one +another, of the passing traffic, of a barrel-organ in the distance. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you must work tonight, Philip?” she asked him, with a +wistful expression. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought, but I don’t know that I must. Why, d’you want me to +do anything else?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to go out for a bit. Couldn’t we take a ride on the +top of a tram?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll just go and put on my hat,” she said joyfully. +</p> + +<p> +The night made it almost impossible to stay indoors. The baby was asleep and +could be safely left; Mildred said she had always left it alone at night when +she went out; it never woke. She was in high spirits when she came back with +her hat on. She had taken the opportunity to put on a little rouge. Philip +thought it was excitement which had brought a faint colour to her pale cheeks; +he was touched by her child-like delight, and reproached himself for the +austerity with which he had treated her. She laughed when she got out into the +air. The first tram they saw was going towards Westminster Bridge and they got +on it. Philip smoked his pipe, and they looked at the crowded street. The shops +were open, gaily lit, and people were doing their shopping for the next day. +They passed a music-hall called the Canterbury and Mildred cried out: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip, do let’s go there. I haven’t been to a +music-hall for months.” +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t afford stalls, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mind, I shall be quite happy in the gallery.” +</p> + +<p> +They got down and walked back a hundred yards till they came to the doors. They +got capital seats for sixpence each, high up but not in the gallery, and the +night was so fine that there was plenty of room. Mildred’s eyes +glistened. She enjoyed herself thoroughly. There was a simple-mindedness in her +which touched Philip. She was a puzzle to him. Certain things in her still +pleased him, and he thought that there was a lot in her which was very good: +she had been badly brought up, and her life was hard; he had blamed her for +much that she could not help; and it was his own fault if he had asked virtues +from her which it was not in her power to give. Under different circumstances +she might have been a charming girl. She was extraordinarily unfit for the +battle of life. As he watched her now in profile, her mouth slightly open and +that delicate flush on her cheeks, he thought she looked strangely virginal. He +felt an overwhelming compassion for her, and with all his heart he forgave her +for the misery she had caused him. The smoky atmosphere made Philip’s +eyes ache, but when he suggested going she turned to him with beseeching face +and asked him to stay till the end. He smiled and consented. She took his hand +and held it for the rest of the performance. When they streamed out with the +audience into the crowded street she did not want to go home; they wandered up +the Westminster Bridge Road, looking at the people. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve not had such a good time as this for months,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart was full, and he was thankful to the fates because he had +carried out his sudden impulse to take Mildred and her baby into his flat. It +was very pleasant to see her happy gratitude. At last she grew tired and they +jumped on a tram to go home; it was late now, and when they got down and turned +into their own street there was no one about. Mildred slipped her arm through +his. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just like old times, Phil,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She had never called him Phil before, that was what Griffiths called him; and +even now it gave him a curious pang. He remembered how much he had wanted to +die then; his pain had been so great that he had thought quite seriously of +committing suicide. It all seemed very long ago. He smiled at his past self. +Now he felt nothing for Mildred but infinite pity. They reached the house, and +when they got into the sitting-room Philip lit the gas. +</p> + +<p> +“Is the baby all right?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll just go in and see.” +</p> + +<p> +When she came back it was to say that it had not stirred since she left it. It +was a wonderful child. Philip held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you want to go to bed already?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nearly one. I’m not used to late hours these +days,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She took his hand and holding it looked into his eyes with a little smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Phil, the other night in that room, when you asked me to come and stay +here, I didn’t mean what you thought I meant, when you said you +didn’t want me to be anything to you except just to cook and that sort of +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you?” answered Philip, withdrawing his hand. “I +did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be such an old silly,” she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I meant it quite seriously. I shouldn’t have asked you to stay +here on any other condition.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel I couldn’t. I can’t explain it, but it would spoil it +all.” +</p> + +<p> +She shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well, it’s just as you choose. I’m not one to go +down on my hands and knees for that, and chance it.” +</p> + +<p> +She went out, slamming the door behind her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCIII</h2> + +<p> +Next morning Mildred was sulky and taciturn. She remained in her room till it +was time to get the dinner ready. She was a bad cook and could do little more +than chops and steaks; and she did not know how to use up odds and ends, so +that Philip was obliged to spend more money than he had expected. When she +served up she sat down opposite Philip, but would eat nothing; he remarked on +it; she said she had a bad headache and was not hungry. He was glad that he had +somewhere to spend the rest of the day; the Athelnys were cheerful and +friendly. It was a delightful and an unexpected thing to realise that everyone +in that household looked forward with pleasure to his visit. Mildred had gone +to bed when he came back, but next day she was still silent. At supper she sat +with a haughty expression on her face and a little frown between her eyes. It +made Philip impatient, but he told himself that he must be considerate to her; +he was bound to make allowance. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very silent,” he said, with a pleasant smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m paid to cook and clean, I didn’t know I was expected to +talk as well.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought it an ungracious answer, but if they were going to live together he +must do all he could to make things go easily. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you’re cross with me about the other +night,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was an awkward thing to speak about, but apparently it was necessary to +discuss it. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t be angry with me. I should never have asked you to +come and live here if I’d not meant our relations to be merely friendly. +I suggested it because I thought you wanted a home and you would have a chance +of looking about for something to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t think I care.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t for a moment,” he hastened to say. “You +mustn’t think I’m ungrateful. I realise that you only proposed it +for my sake. It’s just a feeling I have, and I can’t help it, it +would make the whole thing ugly and horrid.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are funny,” she said, looking at him curiously. “I +can’t make you out.” +</p> + +<p> +She was not angry with him now, but puzzled; she had no idea what he meant: she +accepted the situation, she had indeed a vague feeling that he was behaving in +a very noble fashion and that she ought to admire it; but also she felt +inclined to laugh at him and perhaps even to despise him a little. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a rum customer,” she thought. +</p> + +<p> +Life went smoothly enough with them. Philip spent all day at the hospital and +worked at home in the evening except when he went to the Athelnys’ or to +the tavern in Beak Street. Once the physician for whom he clerked asked him to +a solemn dinner, and two or three times he went to parties given by +fellow-students. Mildred accepted the monotony of her life. If she minded that +Philip left her sometimes by herself in the evening she never mentioned it. +Occasionally he took her to a music hall. He carried out his intention that the +only tie between them should be the domestic service she did in return for +board and lodging. She had made up her mind that it was no use trying to get +work that summer, and with Philip’s approval determined to stay where she +was till the autumn. She thought it would be easy to get something to do then. +</p> + +<p> +“As far as I’m concerned you can stay on here when you’ve got +a job if it’s convenient. The room’s there, and the woman who did +for me before can come in to look after the baby.” +</p> + +<p> +He grew very much attached to Mildred’s child. He had a naturally +affectionate disposition, which had had little opportunity to display itself. +Mildred was not unkind to the little girl. She looked after her very well and +once when she had a bad cold proved herself a devoted nurse; but the child +bored her, and she spoke to her sharply when she bothered; she was fond of her, +but had not the maternal passion which might have induced her to forget +herself. Mildred had no demonstrativeness, and she found the manifestations of +affection ridiculous. When Philip sat with the baby on his knees, playing with +it and kissing it, she laughed at him. +</p> + +<p> +“You couldn’t make more fuss of her if you was her father,” +she said. “You’re perfectly silly with the child.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed, for he hated to be laughed at. It was absurd to be so devoted +to another man’s baby, and he was a little ashamed of the overflowing of +his heart. But the child, feeling Philip’s attachment, would put her face +against his or nestle in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all very fine for you,” said Mildred. “You +don’t have any of the disagreeable part of it. How would you like being +kept awake for an hour in the middle of the night because her ladyship +wouldn’t go to sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip remembered all sorts of things of his childhood which he thought he had +long forgotten. He took hold of the baby’s toes. +</p> + +<p> +“This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home.” +</p> + +<p> +When he came home in the evening and entered the sitting-room his first glance +was for the baby sprawling on the floor, and it gave him a little thrill of +delight to hear the child’s crow of pleasure at seeing him. Mildred +taught her to call him daddy, and when the child did this for the first time of +her own accord, laughed immoderately. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you’re that stuck on baby because she’s +mine,” asked Mildred, “or if you’d be the same with +anybody’s baby.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never known anybody else’s baby, so I can’t +say,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of his second term as in-patients’ clerk a piece of good +fortune befell Philip. It was the middle of July. He went one Tuesday evening +to the tavern in Beak Street and found nobody there but Macalister. They sat +together, chatting about their absent friends, and after a while Macalister +said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, by the way, I heard of a rather good thing today, New Kleinfonteins; +it’s a gold mine in Rhodesia. If you’d like to have a flutter you +might make a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had been waiting anxiously for such an opportunity, but now that it came +he hesitated. He was desperately afraid of losing money. He had little of the +gambler’s spirit. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d love to, but I don’t know if I dare risk it. How much +could I lose if things went wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t have spoken of it, only you seemed so keen about +it,” Macalister answered coldly. +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt that Macalister looked upon him as rather a donkey. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully keen on making a bit,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t make money unless you’re prepared to risk +money.” +</p> + +<p> +Macalister began to talk of other things and Philip, while he was answering +him, kept thinking that if the venture turned out well the stockbroker would be +very facetious at his expense next time they met. Macalister had a sarcastic +tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I will have a flutter if you don’t mind,” said +Philip anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I’ll buy you two hundred and fifty shares and if I see +a half-crown rise I’ll sell them at once.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip quickly reckoned out how much that would amount to, and his mouth +watered; thirty pounds would be a godsend just then, and he thought the fates +owed him something. He told Mildred what he had done when he saw her at +breakfast next morning. She thought him very silly. +</p> + +<p> +“I never knew anyone who made money on the Stock Exchange,” she +said. “That’s what Emil always said, you can’t expect to make +money on the Stock Exchange, he said.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip bought an evening paper on his way home and turned at once to the money +columns. He knew nothing about these things and had difficulty in finding the +stock which Macalister had spoken of. He saw they had advanced a quarter. His +heart leaped, and then he felt sick with apprehension in case Macalister had +forgotten or for some reason had not bought. Macalister had promised to +telegraph. Philip could not wait to take a tram home. He jumped into a cab. It +was an unwonted extravagance. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there a telegram for me?” he said, as he burst in. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +His face fell, and in bitter disappointment he sank heavily into a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Then he didn’t buy them for me after all. Curse him,” he +added violently. “What cruel luck! And I’ve been thinking all day +of what I’d do with the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what were you going to do?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good of thinking about that now? Oh, I wanted the money +so badly.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a laugh and handed him a telegram. +</p> + +<p> +“I was only having a joke with you. I opened it.” +</p> + +<p> +He tore it out of her hands. Macalister had bought him two hundred and fifty +shares and sold them at the half-crown profit he had suggested. The commission +note was to follow next day. For one moment Philip was furious with Mildred for +her cruel jest, but then he could only think of his joy. +</p> + +<p> +“It makes such a difference to me,” he cried. “I’ll +stand you a new dress if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want it badly enough,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to be +operated upon at the end of July.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, have you got something the matter with you?” she interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +It struck her that an illness she did not know might explain what had so much +puzzled her. He flushed, for he hated to refer to his deformity. +</p> + +<p> +“No, but they think they can do something to my foot. I couldn’t +spare the time before, but now it doesn’t matter so much. I shall start +my dressing in October instead of next month. I shall only be in hospital a few +weeks and then we can go away to the seaside for the rest of the summer. +It’ll do us all good, you and the baby and me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, let’s go to Brighton, Philip, I like Brighton, you get such a +nice class of people there.” Philip had vaguely thought of some little +fishing village in Cornwall, but as she spoke it occurred to him that Mildred +would be bored to death there. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind where we go as long as I get the sea.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not know why, but he had suddenly an irresistible longing for the sea. +He wanted to bathe, and he thought with delight of splashing about in the salt +water. He was a good swimmer, and nothing exhilarated him like a rough sea. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, it will be jolly,” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll be like a honeymoon, won’t it?” she said. +“How much can I have for my new dress, Phil?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCIV</h2> + +<p> +Philip asked Mr. Jacobs, the assistant-surgeon for whom he had dressed, to do +the operation. Jacobs accepted with pleasure, since he was interested just then +in neglected talipes and was getting together materials for a paper. He warned +Philip that he could not make his foot like the other, but he thought he could +do a good deal; and though he would always limp he would be able to wear a boot +less unsightly than that which he had been accustomed to. Philip remembered how +he had prayed to a God who was able to remove mountains for him who had faith, +and he smiled bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t expect a miracle,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’re wise to let me try what I can do. You’ll find +a club-foot rather a handicap in practice. The layman is full of fads, and he +doesn’t like his doctor to have anything the matter with him.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip went into a ‘small ward’, which was a room on the landing, +outside each ward, reserved for special cases. He remained there a month, for +the surgeon would not let him go till he could walk; and, bearing the operation +very well, he had a pleasant enough time. Lawson and Athelny came to see him, +and one day Mrs. Athelny brought two of her children; students whom he knew +looked in now and again to have a chat; Mildred came twice a week. Everyone was +very kind to him, and Philip, always surprised when anyone took trouble with +him, was touched and grateful. He enjoyed the relief from care; he need not +worry there about the future, neither whether his money would last out nor +whether he would pass his final examinations; and he could read to his +heart’s content. He had not been able to read much of late, since Mildred +disturbed him: she would make an aimless remark when he was trying to +concentrate his attention, and would not be satisfied unless he answered; +whenever he was comfortably settled down with a book she would want something +done and would come to him with a cork she could not draw or a hammer to drive +in a nail. +</p> + +<p> +They settled to go to Brighton in August. Philip wanted to take lodgings, but +Mildred said that she would have to do housekeeping, and it would only be a +holiday for her if they went to a boarding-house. +</p> + +<p> +“I have to see about the food every day at home, I get that sick of it I +want a thorough change.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip agreed, and it happened that Mildred knew of a boarding-house at Kemp +Town where they would not be charged more than twenty-five shillings a week +each. She arranged with Philip to write about rooms, but when he got back to +Kennington he found that she had done nothing. He was irritated. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t have thought you had so much to do as all that,” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I can’t think of everything. It’s not my fault if I +forget, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was so anxious to get to the sea that he would not wait to communicate +with the mistress of the boarding-house. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll leave the luggage at the station and go to the house and see +if they’ve got rooms, and if they have we can just send an outside porter +for our traps.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can please yourself,” said Mildred stiffly. +</p> + +<p> +She did not like being reproached, and, retiring huffily into a haughty +silence, she sat by listlessly while Philip made the preparations for their +departure. The little flat was hot and stuffy under the August sun, and from +the road beat up a malodorous sultriness. As he lay in his bed in the small +ward with its red, distempered walls he had longed for fresh air and the +splashing of the sea against his breast. He felt he would go mad if he had to +spend another night in London. Mildred recovered her good temper when she saw +the streets of Brighton crowded with people making holiday, and they were both +in high spirits as they drove out to Kemp Town. Philip stroked the baby’s +cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall get a very different colour into them when we’ve been +down here a few days,” he said, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +They arrived at the boarding-house and dismissed the cab. An untidy maid opened +the door and, when Philip asked if they had rooms, said she would inquire. She +fetched her mistress. A middle-aged woman, stout and business-like, came +downstairs, gave them the scrutinising glance of her profession, and asked what +accommodation they required. +</p> + +<p> +“Two single rooms, and if you’ve got such a thing we’d rather +like a cot in one of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I haven’t got that. I’ve got one nice large +double room, and I could let you have a cot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think that would do,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I could give you another room next week. Brighton’s very full just +now, and people have to take what they can get.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it were only for a few days, Philip, I think we might be able to +manage,” said Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +“I think two rooms would be more convenient. Can you recommend any other +place where they take boarders?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can, but I don’t suppose they’d have room any more than I +have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving me the address.” +</p> + +<p> +The house the stout woman suggested was in the next street, and they walked +towards it. Philip could walk quite well, though he had to lean on a stick, and +he was rather weak. Mildred carried the baby. They went for a little in +silence, and then he saw she was crying. It annoyed him, and he took no notice, +but she forced his attention. +</p> + +<p> +“Lend me a hanky, will you? I can’t get at mine with baby,” +she said in a voice strangled with sobs, turning her head away from him. +</p> + +<p> +He gave her his handkerchief, but said nothing. She dried her eyes, and as he +did not speak, went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I might be poisonous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t make a scene in the street,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll look so funny insisting on separate rooms like that. +What’ll they think of us?” +</p> + +<p> +“If they knew the circumstances I imagine they’d think us +surprisingly moral,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a sidelong glance. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not going to give it away that we’re not +married?” she asked quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why won’t you live with me as if we were married then?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, I can’t explain. I don’t want to humiliate you, but +I simply can’t. I daresay it’s very silly and unreasonable, but +it’s stronger than I am. I loved you so much that now…” he broke +off. “After all, there’s no accounting for that sort of +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“A fat lot you must have loved me!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +The boarding-house to which they had been directed was kept by a bustling +maiden lady, with shrewd eyes and voluble speech. They could have one double +room for twenty-five shillings a week each, and five shillings extra for the +baby, or they could have two single rooms for a pound a week more. +</p> + +<p> +“I have to charge that much more,” the woman explained +apologetically, “because if I’m pushed to it I can put two beds +even in the single rooms.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay that won’t ruin us. What do you think, Mildred?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mind. Anything’s good enough for me,” she +answered. +</p> + +<p> +Philip passed off her sulky reply with a laugh, and, the landlady having +arranged to send for their luggage, they sat down to rest themselves. +Philip’s foot was hurting him a little, and he was glad to put it up on a +chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you don’t mind my sitting in the same room with +you,” said Mildred aggressively. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s quarrel, Mildred,” he said gently. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know you was so well off you could afford to throw away a +pound a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be angry with me. I assure you it’s the only way we +can live together at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you despise me, that’s it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I don’t. Why should I?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so unnatural.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it? You’re not in love with me, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Me? Who d’you take me for?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not as if you were a very passionate woman, you’re not +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so humiliating,” she said sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wouldn’t fuss about that if I were you.” +</p> + +<p> +There were about a dozen people in the boarding-house. They ate in a narrow, +dark room at a long table, at the head of which the landlady sat and carved. +The food was bad. The landlady called it French cooking, by which she meant +that the poor quality of the materials was disguised by ill-made sauces: plaice +masqueraded as sole and New Zealand mutton as lamb. The kitchen was small and +inconvenient, so that everything was served up lukewarm. The people were dull +and pretentious; old ladies with elderly maiden daughters; funny old bachelors +with mincing ways; pale-faced, middle-aged clerks with wives, who talked of +their married daughters and their sons who were in a very good position in the +Colonies. At table they discussed Miss Corelli’s latest novel; some of +them liked Lord Leighton better than Mr. Alma-Tadema, and some of them liked +Mr. Alma-Tadema better than Lord Leighton. Mildred soon told the ladies of her +romantic marriage with Philip; and he found himself an object of interest +because his family, county people in a very good position, had cut him off with +a shilling because he married while he was only a stoodent; and Mildred’s +father, who had a large place down Devonshire way, wouldn’t do anything +for them because she had married Philip. That was why they had come to a +boarding-house and had not a nurse for the baby; but they had to have two rooms +because they were both used to a good deal of accommodation and they +didn’t care to be cramped. The other visitors also had explanations of +their presence: one of the single gentlemen generally went to the Metropole for +his holiday, but he liked cheerful company and you couldn’t get that at +one of those expensive hotels; and the old lady with the middle-aged daughter +was having her beautiful house in London done up and she said to her daughter: +“Gwennie, my dear, we must have a cheap holiday this year,” and so +they had come there, though of course it wasn’t at all the kind of thing +they were used to. Mildred found them all very superior, and she hated a lot of +common, rough people. She liked gentlemen to be gentlemen in every sense of the +word. +</p> + +<p> +“When people are gentlemen and ladies,” she said, “I like +them to be gentlemen and ladies.” +</p> + +<p> +The remark seemed cryptic to Philip, but when he heard her say it two or three +times to different persons, and found that it aroused hearty agreement, he came +to the conclusion that it was only obscure to his own intelligence. It was the +first time that Philip and Mildred had been thrown entirely together. In London +he did not see her all day, and when he came home the household affairs, the +baby, the neighbours, gave them something to talk about till he settled down to +work. Now he spent the whole day with her. After breakfast they went down to +the beach; the morning went easily enough with a bathe and a stroll along the +front; the evening, which they spent on the pier, having put the baby to bed, +was tolerable, for there was music to listen to and a constant stream of people +to look at; (Philip amused himself by imagining who they were and weaving +little stories about them; he had got into the habit of answering +Mildred’s remarks with his mouth only so that his thoughts remained +undisturbed;) but the afternoons were long and dreary. They sat on the beach. +Mildred said they must get all the benefit they could out of Doctor Brighton, +and he could not read because Mildred made observations frequently about things +in general. If he paid no attention she complained. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, leave that silly old book alone. It can’t be good for you +always reading. You’ll addle your brain, that’s what you’ll +do, Philip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, rot!” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides, it’s so unsociable.” +</p> + +<p> +He discovered that it was difficult to talk to her. She had not even the power +of attending to what she was herself saying, so that a dog running in front of +her or the passing of a man in a loud blazer would call forth a remark and then +she would forget what she had been speaking of. She had a bad memory for names, +and it irritated her not to be able to think of them, so that she would pause +in the middle of some story to rack her brains. Sometimes she had to give it +up, but it often occurred to her afterwards, and when Philip was talking of +something she would interrupt him. +</p> + +<p> +“Collins, that was it. I knew it would come back to me some time. +Collins, that’s the name I couldn’t remember.” +</p> + +<p> +It exasperated him because it showed that she was not listening to anything he +said, and yet, if he was silent, she reproached him for sulkiness. Her mind was +of an order that could not deal for five minutes with the abstract, and when +Philip gave way to his taste for generalising she very quickly showed that she +was bored. Mildred dreamt a great deal, and she had an accurate memory for her +dreams, which she would relate every day with prolixity. +</p> + +<p> +One morning he received a long letter from Thorpe Athelny. He was taking his +holiday in the theatrical way, in which there was much sound sense, which +characterised him. He had done the same thing for ten years. He took his whole +family to a hop-field in Kent, not far from Mrs. Athelny’s home, and they +spent three weeks hopping. It kept them in the open air, earned them money, +much to Mrs. Athelny’s satisfaction, and renewed their contact with +mother earth. It was upon this that Athelny laid stress. The sojourn in the +fields gave them a new strength; it was like a magic ceremony, by which they +renewed their youth and the power of their limbs and the sweetness of the +spirit: Philip had heard him say many fantastic, rhetorical, and picturesque +things on the subject. Now Athelny invited him to come over for a day, he had +certain meditations on Shakespeare and the musical glasses which he desired to +impart, and the children were clamouring for a sight of Uncle Philip. Philip +read the letter again in the afternoon when he was sitting with Mildred on the +beach. He thought of Mrs. Athelny, cheerful mother of many children, with her +kindly hospitality and her good humour; of Sally, grave for her years, with +funny little maternal ways and an air of authority, with her long plait of fair +hair and her broad forehead; and then in a bunch of all the others, merry, +boisterous, healthy, and handsome. His heart went out to them. There was one +quality which they had that he did not remember to have noticed in people +before, and that was goodness. It had not occurred to him till now, but it was +evidently the beauty of their goodness which attracted him. In theory he did +not believe in it: if morality were no more than a matter of convenience good +and evil had no meaning. He did not like to be illogical, but here was simple +goodness, natural and without effort, and he thought it beautiful. Meditating, +he slowly tore the letter into little pieces; he did not see how he could go +without Mildred, and he did not want to go with her. +</p> + +<p> +It was very hot, the sky was cloudless, and they had been driven to a shady +corner. The baby was gravely playing with stones on the beach, and now and then +she crawled up to Philip and gave him one to hold, then took it away again and +placed it carefully down. She was playing a mysterious and complicated game +known only to herself. Mildred was asleep. She lay with her head thrown back +and her mouth slightly open; her legs were stretched out, and her boots +protruded from her petticoats in a grotesque fashion. His eyes had been resting +on her vaguely, but now he looked at her with peculiar attention. He remembered +how passionately he had loved her, and he wondered why now he was entirely +indifferent to her. The change in him filled him with dull pain. It seemed to +him that all he had suffered had been sheer waste. The touch of her hand had +filled him with ecstasy; he had desired to enter into her soul so that he could +share every thought with her and every feeling; he had suffered acutely +because, when silence had fallen between them, a remark of hers showed how far +their thoughts had travelled apart, and he had rebelled against the +unsurmountable wall which seemed to divide every personality from every other. +He found it strangely tragic that he had loved her so madly and now loved her +not at all. Sometimes he hated her. She was incapable of learning, and the +experience of life had taught her nothing. She was as unmannerly as she had +always been. It revolted Philip to hear the insolence with which she treated +the hard-worked servant at the boarding-house. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he considered his own plans. At the end of his fourth year he would +be able to take his examination in midwifery, and a year more would see him +qualified. Then he might manage a journey to Spain. He wanted to see the +pictures which he knew only from photographs; he felt deeply that El Greco held +a secret of peculiar moment to him; and he fancied that in Toledo he would +surely find it out. He did not wish to do things grandly, and on a hundred +pounds he might live for six months in Spain: if Macalister put him on to +another good thing he could make that easily. His heart warmed at the thought +of those old beautiful cities, and the tawny plains of Castile. He was +convinced that more might be got out of life than offered itself at present, +and he thought that in Spain he could live with greater intensity: it might be +possible to practise in one of those old cities, there were a good many +foreigners, passing or resident, and he should be able to pick up a living. But +that would be much later; first he must get one or two hospital appointments; +they gave experience and made it easy to get jobs afterwards. He wished to get +a berth as ship’s doctor on one of the large tramps that took things +leisurely enough for a man to see something of the places at which they +stopped. He wanted to go to the East; and his fancy was rich with pictures of +Bangkok and Shanghai, and the ports of Japan: he pictured to himself palm-trees +and skies blue and hot, dark-skinned people, pagodas; the scents of the Orient +intoxicated his nostrils. His heart beat with passionate desire for the beauty +and the strangeness of the world. +</p> + +<p> +Mildred awoke. +</p> + +<p> +“I do believe I’ve been asleep,” she said. “Now then, +you naughty girl, what have you been doing to yourself? Her dress was clean +yesterday and just look at it now, Philip.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCV</h2> + +<p> +When they returned to London Philip began his dressing in the surgical wards. +He was not so much interested in surgery as in medicine, which, a more +empirical science, offered greater scope to the imagination. The work was a +little harder than the corresponding work on the medical side. There was a +lecture from nine till ten, when he went into the wards; there wounds had to be +dressed, stitches taken out, bandages renewed: Philip prided himself a little +on his skill in bandaging, and it amused him to wring a word of approval from a +nurse. On certain afternoons in the week there were operations; and he stood in +the well of the theatre, in a white jacket, ready to hand the operating surgeon +any instrument he wanted or to sponge the blood away so that he could see what +he was about. When some rare operation was to be performed the theatre would +fill up, but generally there were not more than half a dozen students present, +and then the proceedings had a cosiness which Philip enjoyed. At that time the +world at large seemed to have a passion for appendicitis, and a good many cases +came to the operating theatre for this complaint: the surgeon for whom Philip +dressed was in friendly rivalry with a colleague as to which could remove an +appendix in the shortest time and with the smallest incision. +</p> + +<p> +In due course Philip was put on accident duty. The dressers took this in turn; +it lasted three days, during which they lived in hospital and ate their meals +in the common-room; they had a room on the ground floor near the casualty ward, +with a bed that shut up during the day into a cupboard. The dresser on duty had +to be at hand day and night to see to any casualty that came in. You were on +the move all the time, and not more than an hour or two passed during the night +without the clanging of the bell just above your head which made you leap out +of bed instinctively. Saturday night was of course the busiest time and the +closing of the public-houses the busiest hour. Men would be brought in by the +police dead drunk and it would be necessary to administer a stomach-pump; +women, rather the worse for liquor themselves, would come in with a wound on +the head or a bleeding nose which their husbands had given them: some would vow +to have the law on him, and others, ashamed, would declare that it had been an +accident. What the dresser could manage himself he did, but if there was +anything important he sent for the house-surgeon: he did this with care, since +the house-surgeon was not vastly pleased to be dragged down five flights of +stairs for nothing. The cases ranged from a cut finger to a cut throat. Boys +came in with hands mangled by some machine, men were brought who had been +knocked down by a cab, and children who had broken a limb while playing: now +and then attempted suicides were carried in by the police: Philip saw a +ghastly, wild-eyed man with a great gash from ear to ear, and he was in the +ward for weeks afterwards in charge of a constable, silent, angry because he +was alive, and sullen; he made no secret of the fact that he would try again to +kill himself as soon as he was released. The wards were crowded, and the +house-surgeon was faced with a dilemma when patients were brought in by the +police: if they were sent on to the station and died there disagreeable things +were said in the papers; and it was very difficult sometimes to tell if a man +was dying or drunk. Philip did not go to bed till he was tired out, so that he +should not have the bother of getting up again in an hour; and he sat in the +casualty ward talking in the intervals of work with the night-nurse. She was a +gray-haired woman of masculine appearance, who had been night-nurse in the +casualty department for twenty years. She liked the work because she was her +own mistress and had no sister to bother her. Her movements were slow, but she +was immensely capable and she never failed in an emergency. The dressers, often +inexperienced or nervous, found her a tower of strength. She had seen thousands +of them, and they made no impression upon her: she always called them Mr. +Brown; and when they expostulated and told her their real names, she merely +nodded and went on calling them Mr. Brown. It interested Philip to sit with her +in the bare room, with its two horse-hair couches and the flaring gas, and +listen to her. She had long ceased to look upon the people who came in as human +beings; they were drunks, or broken arms, or cut throats. She took the vice and +misery and cruelty of the world as a matter of course; she found nothing to +praise or blame in human actions: she accepted. She had a certain grim humour. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember one suicide,” she said to Philip, “who threw +himself into the Thames. They fished him out and brought him here, and ten days +later he developed typhoid fever from swallowing Thames water.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he die?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he did all right. I could never make up my mind if it was suicide +or not…. They’re a funny lot, suicides. I remember one man who +couldn’t get any work to do and his wife died, so he pawned his clothes +and bought a revolver; but he made a mess of it, he only shot out an eye and he +got all right. And then, if you please, with an eye gone and a piece of his +face blow away, he came to the conclusion that the world wasn’t such a +bad place after all, and he lived happily ever afterwards. Thing I’ve +always noticed, people don’t commit suicide for love, as you’d +expect, that’s just a fancy of novelists; they commit suicide because +they haven’t got any money. I wonder why that is.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose money’s more important than love,” suggested +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Money was in any case occupying Philip’s thoughts a good deal just then. +He discovered the little truth there was in the airy saying which himself had +repeated, that two could live as cheaply as one, and his expenses were +beginning to worry him. Mildred was not a good manager, and it cost them as +much to live as if they had eaten in restaurants; the child needed clothes, and +Mildred boots, an umbrella, and other small things which it was impossible for +her to do without. When they returned from Brighton she had announced her +intention of getting a job, but she took no definite steps, and presently a bad +cold laid her up for a fortnight. When she was well she answered one or two +advertisements, but nothing came of it: either she arrived too late and the +vacant place was filled, or the work was more than she felt strong enough to +do. Once she got an offer, but the wages were only fourteen shillings a week, +and she thought she was worth more than that. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good letting oneself be put upon,” she remarked. +“People don’t respect you if you let yourself go too cheap.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think fourteen shillings is so bad,” answered +Philip, drily. +</p> + +<p> +He could not help thinking how useful it would be towards the expenses of the +household, and Mildred was already beginning to hint that she did not get a +place because she had not got a decent dress to interview employers in. He gave +her the dress, and she made one or two more attempts, but Philip came to the +conclusion that they were not serious. She did not want to work. The only way +he knew to make money was on the Stock Exchange, and he was very anxious to +repeat the lucky experiment of the summer; but war had broken out with the +Transvaal and nothing was doing in South Africans. Macalister told him that +Redvers Buller would march into Pretoria in a month and then everything would +boom. The only thing was to wait patiently. What they wanted was a British +reverse to knock things down a bit, and then it might be worth while buying. +Philip began reading assiduously the ‘city chat’ of his favourite +newspaper. He was worried and irritable. Once or twice he spoke sharply to +Mildred, and since she was neither tactful nor patient she answered with +temper, and they quarrelled. Philip always expressed his regret for what he had +said, but Mildred had not a forgiving nature, and she would sulk for a couple +of days. She got on his nerves in all sorts of ways; by the manner in which she +ate, and by the untidiness which made her leave articles of clothing about +their sitting-room: Philip was excited by the war and devoured the papers, +morning and evening; but she took no interest in anything that happened. She +had made the acquaintance of two or three people who lived in the street, and +one of them had asked if she would like the curate to call on her. She wore a +wedding-ring and called herself Mrs. Carey. On Philip’s walls were two or +three of the drawings which he had made in Paris, nudes, two of women and one +of Miguel Ajuria, standing very square on his feet, with clenched fists. Philip +kept them because they were the best things he had done, and they reminded him +of happy days. Mildred had long looked at them with disfavour. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d take those drawings down, Philip,” she said to +him at last. “Mrs. Foreman, of number thirteen, came in yesterday +afternoon, and I didn’t know which way to look. I saw her staring at +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with them?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re indecent. Disgusting, that’s what I call it, to have +drawings of naked people about. And it isn’t nice for baby either. +She’s beginning to notice things now.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you be so vulgar?” +</p> + +<p> +“Vulgar? Modest, I call it. I’ve never said anything, but +d’you think I like having to look at those naked people all day +long.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you no sense of humour at all, Mildred?” he asked frigidly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what sense of humour’s got to do with it. +I’ve got a good mind to take them down myself. If you want to know what I +think about them, I think they’re disgusting.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to know what you think about them, and I forbid you +to touch them.” +</p> + +<p> +When Mildred was cross with him she punished him through the baby. The little +girl was as fond of Philip as he was of her, and it was her great pleasure +every morning to crawl into his room (she was getting on for two now and could +walk pretty well), and be taken up into his bed. When Mildred stopped this the +poor child would cry bitterly. To Philip’s remonstrances she replied: +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want her to get into habits.” +</p> + +<p> +And if then he said anything more she said: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nothing to do with you what I do with my child. To hear you +talk one would think you was her father. I’m her mother, and I ought to +know what’s good for her, oughtn’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was exasperated by Mildred’s stupidity; but he was so indifferent +to her now that it was only at times she made him angry. He grew used to having +her about. Christmas came, and with it a couple of days holiday for Philip. He +brought some holly in and decorated the flat, and on Christmas Day he gave +small presents to Mildred and the baby. There were only two of them so they +could not have a turkey, but Mildred roasted a chicken and boiled a Christmas +pudding which she had bought at a local grocer’s. They stood themselves a +bottle of wine. When they had dined Philip sat in his arm-chair by the fire, +smoking his pipe; and the unaccustomed wine had made him forget for a while the +anxiety about money which was so constantly with him. He felt happy and +comfortable. Presently Mildred came in to tell him that the baby wanted him to +kiss her good-night, and with a smile he went into Mildred’s bed-room. +Then, telling the child to go to sleep, he turned down the gas and, leaving the +door open in case she cried, went back into the sitting-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going to sit?” he asked Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +“You sit in your chair. I’m going to sit on the floor.” +</p> + +<p> +When he sat down she settled herself in front of the fire and leaned against +his knees. He could not help remembering that this was how they had sat +together in her rooms in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, but the positions had been +reversed; it was he who had sat on the floor and leaned his head against her +knee. How passionately he had loved her then! Now he felt for her a tenderness +he had not known for a long time. He seemed still to feel twined round his neck +the baby’s soft little arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you comfy?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She looked up at him, gave a slight smile, and nodded. They gazed into the fire +dreamily, without speaking to one another. At last she turned round and stared +at him curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you know that you haven’t kissed me once since I came +here?” she said suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you want me to?” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you don’t care for me in that way any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very fond of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re much fonder of baby.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer, and she laid her cheek against his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not angry with me any more?” she asked presently, +with her eyes cast down. +</p> + +<p> +“Why on earth should I be?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never cared for you as I do now. It’s only since I +passed through the fire that I’ve learnt to love you.” It chilled +Philip to hear her make use of the sort of phrase she read in the penny +novelettes which she devoured. Then he wondered whether what she said had any +meaning for her: perhaps she knew no other way to express her genuine feelings +than the stilted language of The Family Herald. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems so funny our living together like this.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not reply for quite a long time, and silence fell upon them again; but +at last he spoke and seemed conscious of no interval. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t be angry with me. One can’t help these things. I +remember that I thought you wicked and cruel because you did this, that, and +the other; but it was very silly of me. You didn’t love me, and it was +absurd to blame you for that. I thought I could make you love me, but I know +now that was impossible. I don’t know what it is that makes someone love +you, but whatever it is, it’s the only thing that matters, and if it +isn’t there you won’t create it by kindness, or generosity, or +anything of that sort.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought if you’d loved me really you’d have +loved me still.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought so too. I remember how I used to think that it +would last for ever, I felt I would rather die than be without you, and I used +to long for the time when you would be faded and wrinkled so that nobody cared +for you any more and I should have you all to myself.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, and presently she got up and said she was going to bed. She +gave a timid little smile. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Christmas Day, Philip, won’t you kiss me +good-night?” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a laugh, blushed slightly, and kissed her. She went to her bed-room and +he began to read. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCVI</h2> + +<p> +The climax came two or three weeks later. Mildred was driven by Philip’s +behaviour to a pitch of strange exasperation. There were many different +emotions in her soul, and she passed from mood to mood with facility. She spent +a great deal of time alone and brooded over her position. She did not put all +her feelings into words, she did not even know what they were, but certain +things stood out in her mind, and she thought of them over and over again. She +had never understood Philip, nor had very much liked him; but she was pleased +to have him about her because she thought he was a gentleman. She was impressed +because his father had been a doctor and his uncle was a clergyman. She +despised him a little because she had made such a fool of him, and at the same +time was never quite comfortable in his presence; she could not let herself go, +and she felt that he was criticising her manners. +</p> + +<p> +When she first came to live in the little rooms in Kennington she was tired out +and ashamed. She was glad to be left alone. It was a comfort to think that +there was no rent to pay; she need not go out in all weathers, and she could +lie quietly in bed if she did not feel well. She had hated the life she led. It +was horrible to have to be affable and subservient; and even now when it +crossed her mind she cried with pity for herself as she thought of the +roughness of men and their brutal language. But it crossed her mind very +seldom. She was grateful to Philip for coming to her rescue, and when she +remembered how honestly he had loved her and how badly she had treated him, she +felt a pang of remorse. It was easy to make it up to him. It meant very little +to her. She was surprised when he refused her suggestion, but she shrugged her +shoulders: let him put on airs if he liked, she did not care, he would be +anxious enough in a little while, and then it would be her turn to refuse; if +he thought it was any deprivation to her he was very much mistaken. She had no +doubt of her power over him. He was peculiar, but she knew him through and +through. He had so often quarrelled with her and sworn he would never see her +again, and then in a little while he had come on his knees begging to be +forgiven. It gave her a thrill to think how he had cringed before her. He would +have been glad to lie down on the ground for her to walk on him. She had seen +him cry. She knew exactly how to treat him, pay no attention to him, just +pretend you didn’t notice his tempers, leave him severely alone, and in a +little while he was sure to grovel. She laughed a little to herself, +good-humouredly, when she thought how he had come and eaten dirt before her. +She had had her fling now. She knew what men were and did not want to have +anything more to do with them. She was quite ready to settle down with Philip. +When all was said, he was a gentleman in every sense of the word, and that was +something not to be sneezed at, wasn’t it? Anyhow she was in no hurry, +and she was not going to take the first step. She was glad to see how fond he +was growing of the baby, though it tickled her a good deal; it was comic that +he should set so much store on another man’s child. He was peculiar and +no mistake. +</p> + +<p> +But one or two things surprised her. She had been used to his subservience: he +was only too glad to do anything for her in the old days, she was accustomed to +see him cast down by a cross word and in ecstasy at a kind one; he was +different now, and she said to herself that he had not improved in the last +year. It never struck her for a moment that there could be any change in his +feelings, and she thought it was only acting when he paid no heed to her bad +temper. He wanted to read sometimes and told her to stop talking: she did not +know whether to flare up or to sulk, and was so puzzled that she did neither. +Then came the conversation in which he told her that he intended their +relations to be platonic, and, remembering an incident of their common past, it +occurred to her that he dreaded the possibility of her being pregnant. She took +pains to reassure him. It made no difference. She was the sort of woman who was +unable to realise that a man might not have her own obsession with sex; her +relations with men had been purely on those lines; and she could not understand +that they ever had other interests. The thought struck her that Philip was in +love with somebody else, and she watched him, suspecting nurses at the hospital +or people he met out; but artful questions led her to the conclusion that there +was no one dangerous in the Athelny household; and it forced itself upon her +also that Philip, like most medical students, was unconscious of the sex of the +nurses with whom his work threw him in contact. They were associated in his +mind with a faint odour of iodoform. Philip received no letters, and there was +no girl’s photograph among his belongings. If he was in love with +someone, he was very clever at hiding it; and he answered all Mildred’s +questions with frankness and apparently without suspicion that there was any +motive in them. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe he’s in love with anybody else,” she +said to herself at last. +</p> + +<p> +It was a relief, for in that case he was certainly still in love with her; but +it made his behaviour very puzzling. If he was going to treat her like that why +did he ask her to come and live at the flat? It was unnatural. Mildred was not +a woman who conceived the possibility of compassion, generosity, or kindness. +Her only conclusion was that Philip was queer. She took it into her head that +the reasons for his conduct were chivalrous; and, her imagination filled with +the extravagances of cheap fiction, she pictured to herself all sorts of +romantic explanations for his delicacy. Her fancy ran riot with bitter +misunderstandings, purifications by fire, snow-white souls, and death in the +cruel cold of a Christmas night. She made up her mind that when they went to +Brighton she would put an end to all his nonsense; they would be alone there, +everyone would think them husband and wife, and there would be the pier and the +band. When she found that nothing would induce Philip to share the same room +with her, when he spoke to her about it with a tone in his voice she had never +heard before, she suddenly realised that he did not want her. She was +astounded. She remembered all he had said in the past and how desperately he +had loved her. She felt humiliated and angry, but she had a sort of native +insolence which carried her through. He needn’t think she was in love +with him, because she wasn’t. She hated him sometimes, and she longed to +humble him; but she found herself singularly powerless; she did not know which +way to handle him. She began to be a little nervous with him. Once or twice she +cried. Once or twice she set herself to be particularly nice to him; but when +she took his arm while they walked along the front at night he made some excuse +in a while to release himself, as though it were unpleasant for him to be +touched by her. She could not make it out. The only hold she had over him was +through the baby, of whom he seemed to grow fonder and fonder: she could make +him white with anger by giving the child a slap or a push; and the only time +the old, tender smile came back into his eyes was when she stood with the baby +in her arms. She noticed it when she was being photographed like that by a man +on the beach, and afterwards she often stood in the same way for Philip to look +at her. +</p> + +<p> +When they got back to London Mildred began looking for the work she had +asserted was so easy to find; she wanted now to be independent of Philip; and +she thought of the satisfaction with which she would announce to him that she +was going into rooms and would take the child with her. But her heart failed +her when she came into closer contact with the possibility. She had grown +unused to the long hours, she did not want to be at the beck and call of a +manageress, and her dignity revolted at the thought of wearing once more a +uniform. She had made out to such of the neighbours as she knew that they were +comfortably off: it would be a come-down if they heard that she had to go out +and work. Her natural indolence asserted itself. She did not want to leave +Philip, and so long as he was willing to provide for her, she did not see why +she should. There was no money to throw away, but she got her board and +lodging, and he might get better off. His uncle was an old man and might die +any day, he would come into a little then, and even as things were, it was +better than slaving from morning till night for a few shillings a week. Her +efforts relaxed; she kept on reading the advertisement columns of the daily +paper merely to show that she wanted to do something if anything that was worth +her while presented itself. But panic seized her, and she was afraid that +Philip would grow tired of supporting her. She had no hold over him at all now, +and she fancied that he only allowed her to stay there because he was fond of +the baby. She brooded over it all, and she thought to herself angrily that she +would make him pay for all this some day. She could not reconcile herself to +the fact that he no longer cared for her. She would make him. She suffered from +pique, and sometimes in a curious fashion she desired Philip. He was so cold +now that it exasperated her. She thought of him in that way incessantly. She +thought that he was treating her very badly, and she did not know what she had +done to deserve it. She kept on saying to herself that it was unnatural they +should live like that. Then she thought that if things were different and she +were going to have a baby, he would be sure to marry her. He was funny, but he +was a gentleman in every sense of the word, no one could deny that. At last it +became an obsession with her, and she made up her mind to force a change in +their relations. He never even kissed her now, and she wanted him to: she +remembered how ardently he had been used to press her lips. It gave her a +curious feeling to think of it. She often looked at his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +One evening, at the beginning of February, Philip told her that he was dining +with Lawson, who was giving a party in his studio to celebrate his birthday; +and he would not be in till late; Lawson had bought a couple of bottles of the +punch they favoured from the tavern in Beak Street, and they proposed to have a +merry evening. Mildred asked if there were going to be women there, but Philip +told her there were not; only men had been invited; and they were just going to +sit and talk and smoke: Mildred did not think it sounded very amusing; if she +were a painter she would have half a dozen models about. She went to bed, but +could not sleep, and presently an idea struck her; she got up and fixed the +catch on the wicket at the landing, so that Philip could not get in. He came +back about one, and she heard him curse when he found that the wicket was +closed. She got out of bed and opened. +</p> + +<p> +“Why on earth did you shut yourself in? I’m sorry I’ve +dragged you out of bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I left it open on purpose, I can’t think how it came to be +shut.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurry up and get back to bed, or you’ll catch cold.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked into the sitting-room and turned up the gas. She followed him in. She +went up to the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to warm my feet a bit. They’re like ice.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down and began to take off his boots. His eyes were shining and his +cheeks were flushed. She thought he had been drinking. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been enjoying yourself?” she asked, with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve had a ripping time.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was quite sober, but he had been talking and laughing, and he was +excited still. An evening of that sort reminded him of the old days in Paris. +He was in high spirits. He took his pipe out of his pocket and filled it. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to bed?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, I’m not a bit sleepy. Lawson was in great form. He talked +sixteen to the dozen from the moment I got there till the moment I left.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you talk about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven knows! Of every subject under the sun. You should have seen us +all shouting at the tops of our voices and nobody listening.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip laughed with pleasure at the recollection, and Mildred laughed too. She +was pretty sure he had drunk more than was good for him. That was exactly what +she had expected. She knew men. +</p> + +<p> +“Can I sit down?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Before he could answer she settled herself on his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’re not going to bed you’d better go and put on a +dressing-gown.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m all right as I am.” Then putting her arms round his +neck, she placed her face against his and said: “Why are you so horrid to +me, Phil?” +</p> + +<p> +He tried to get up, but she would not let him. +</p> + +<p> +“I do love you, Philip,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk damned rot.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t, it’s true. I can’t live without you. I want +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He released himself from her arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Please get up. You’re making a fool of yourself and you’re +making me feel a perfect idiot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I love you, Philip. I want to make up for all the harm I did you. I +can’t go on like this, it’s not in human nature.” +</p> + +<p> +He slipped out of the chair and left her in it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry, but it’s too late.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a heart-rending sob. +</p> + +<p> +“But why? How can you be so cruel?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it’s because I loved you too much. I wore the passion +out. The thought of anything of that sort horrifies me. I can’t look at +you now without thinking of Emil and Griffiths. One can’t help those +things, I suppose it’s just nerves.” +</p> + +<p> +She seized his hand and covered it with kisses. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t,” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +She sank back into the chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t go on like this. If you won’t love me, I’d +rather go away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be foolish, you haven’t anywhere to go. You can stay +here as long as you like, but it must be on the definite understanding that +we’re friends and nothing more.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she dropped suddenly the vehemence of passion and gave a soft, insinuating +laugh. She sidled up to Philip and put her arms round him. She made her voice +low and wheedling. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be such an old silly. I believe you’re nervous. You +don’t know how nice I can be.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her face against his and rubbed his cheek with hers. To Philip her +smile was an abominable leer, and the suggestive glitter of her eyes filled him +with horror. He drew back instinctively. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +But she would not let him go. She sought his mouth with her lips. He took her +hands and tore them roughly apart and pushed her away. +</p> + +<p> +“You disgust me,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” +</p> + +<p> +She steadied herself with one hand on the chimney-piece. She looked at him for +an instant, and two red spots suddenly appeared on her cheeks. She gave a +shrill, angry laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I disgust YOU.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused and drew in her breath sharply. Then she burst into a furious +torrent of abuse. She shouted at the top of her voice. She called him every +foul name she could think of. She used language so obscene that Philip was +astounded; she was always so anxious to be refined, so shocked by coarseness, +that it had never occurred to him that she knew the words she used now. She +came up to him and thrust her face in his. It was distorted with passion, and +in her tumultuous speech the spittle dribbled over her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“I never cared for you, not once, I was making a fool of you always, you +bored me, you bored me stiff, and I hated you, I would never have let you touch +me only for the money, and it used to make me sick when I had to let you kiss +me. We laughed at you, Griffiths and me, we laughed because you was such a mug. +A mug! A mug!” +</p> + +<p> +Then she burst again into abominable invective. She accused him of every mean +fault; she said he was stingy, she said he was dull, she said he was vain, +selfish; she cast virulent ridicule on everything upon which he was most +sensitive. And at last she turned to go. She kept on, with hysterical violence, +shouting at him an opprobrious, filthy epithet. She seized the handle of the +door and flung it open. Then she turned round and hurled at him the injury +which she knew was the only one that really touched him. She threw into the +word all the malice and all the venom of which she was capable. She flung it at +him as though it were a blow. +</p> + +<p> +“Cripple!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCVII</h2> + +<p> +Philip awoke with a start next morning, conscious that it was late, and looking +at his watch found it was nine o’clock. He jumped out of bed and went +into the kitchen to get himself some hot water to shave with. There was no sign +of Mildred, and the things which she had used for her supper the night before +still lay in the sink unwashed. He knocked at her door. +</p> + +<p> +“Wake up, Mildred. It’s awfully late.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, even after a second louder knocking, and he concluded that +she was sulking. He was in too great a hurry to bother about that. He put some +water on to boil and jumped into his bath which was always poured out the night +before in order to take the chill off. He presumed that Mildred would cook his +breakfast while he was dressing and leave it in the sitting-room. She had done +that two or three times when she was out of temper. But he heard no sound of +her moving, and realised that if he wanted anything to eat he would have to get +it himself. He was irritated that she should play him such a trick on a morning +when he had over-slept himself. There was still no sign of her when he was +ready, but he heard her moving about her room. She was evidently getting up. He +made himself some tea and cut himself a couple of pieces of bread and butter, +which he ate while he was putting on his boots, then bolted downstairs and +along the street into the main road to catch his tram. While his eyes sought +out the newspaper shops to see the war news on the placards, he thought of the +scene of the night before: now that it was over and he had slept on it, he +could not help thinking it grotesque; he supposed he had been ridiculous, but +he was not master of his feelings; at the time they had been overwhelming. He +was angry with Mildred because she had forced him into that absurd position, +and then with renewed astonishment he thought of her outburst and the filthy +language she had used. He could not help flushing when he remembered her final +jibe; but he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. He had long known that when +his fellows were angry with him they never failed to taunt him with his +deformity. He had seen men at the hospital imitate his walk, not before him as +they used at school, but when they thought he was not looking. He knew now that +they did it from no wilful unkindness, but because man is naturally an +imitative animal, and because it was an easy way to make people laugh: he knew +it, but he could never resign himself to it. +</p> + +<p> +He was glad to throw himself into his work. The ward seemed pleasant and +friendly when he entered it. The sister greeted him with a quick, business-like +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very late, Mr. Carey.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was out on the loose last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +Laughing, he went to the first of his cases, a boy with tuberculous ulcers, and +removed his bandages. The boy was pleased to see him, and Philip chaffed him as +he put a clean dressing on the wound. Philip was a favourite with the patients; +he treated them good-humouredly; and he had gentle, sensitive hands which did +not hurt them: some of the dressers were a little rough and happy-go-lucky in +their methods. He lunched with his friends in the club-room, a frugal meal +consisting of a scone and butter, with a cup of cocoa, and they talked of the +war. Several men were going out, but the authorities were particular and +refused everyone who had not had a hospital appointment. Someone suggested +that, if the war went on, in a while they would be glad to take anyone who was +qualified; but the general opinion was that it would be over in a month. Now +that Roberts was there things would get all right in no time. This was +Macalister’s opinion too, and he had told Philip that they must watch +their chance and buy just before peace was declared. There would be a boom +then, and they might all make a bit of money. Philip had left with Macalister +instructions to buy him stock whenever the opportunity presented itself. His +appetite had been whetted by the thirty pounds he had made in the summer, and +he wanted now to make a couple of hundred. +</p> + +<p> +He finished his day’s work and got on a tram to go back to Kennington. He +wondered how Mildred would behave that evening. It was a nuisance to think that +she would probably be surly and refuse to answer his questions. It was a warm +evening for the time of year, and even in those gray streets of South London +there was the languor of February; nature is restless then after the long +winter months, growing things awake from their sleep, and there is a rustle in +the earth, a forerunner of spring, as it resumes its eternal activities. Philip +would have liked to drive on further, it was distasteful to him to go back to +his rooms, and he wanted the air; but the desire to see the child clutched +suddenly at his heartstrings, and he smiled to himself as he thought of her +toddling towards him with a crow of delight. He was surprised, when he reached +the house and looked up mechanically at the windows, to see that there was no +light. He went upstairs and knocked, but got no answer. When Mildred went out +she left the key under the mat and he found it there now. He let himself in and +going into the sitting-room struck a match. Something had happened, he did not +at once know what; he turned the gas on full and lit it; the room was suddenly +filled with the glare and he looked round. He gasped. The whole place was +wrecked. Everything in it had been wilfully destroyed. Anger seized him, and he +rushed into Mildred’s room. It was dark and empty. When he had got a +light he saw that she had taken away all her things and the baby’s (he +had noticed on entering that the go-cart was not in its usual place on the +landing, but thought Mildred had taken the baby out;) and all the things on the +washing-stand had been broken, a knife had been drawn cross-ways through the +seats of the two chairs, the pillow had been slit open, there were large gashes +in the sheets and the counterpane, the looking-glass appeared to have been +broken with a hammer. Philip was bewildered. He went into his own room, and +here too everything was in confusion. The basin and the ewer had been smashed, +the looking-glass was in fragments, and the sheets were in ribands. Mildred had +made a slit large enough to put her hand into the pillow and had scattered the +feathers about the room. She had jabbed a knife into the blankets. On the +dressing-table were photographs of Philip’s mother, the frames had been +smashed and the glass shivered. Philip went into the tiny kitchen. Everything +that was breakable was broken, glasses, pudding-basins, plates, dishes. +</p> + +<p> +It took Philip’s breath away. Mildred had left no letter, nothing but +this ruin to mark her anger, and he could imagine the set face with which she +had gone about her work. He went back into the sitting-room and looked about +him. He was so astonished that he no longer felt angry. He looked curiously at +the kitchen-knife and the coal-hammer, which were lying on the table where she +had left them. Then his eye caught a large carving-knife in the fireplace which +had been broken. It must have taken her a long time to do so much damage. +Lawson’s portrait of him had been cut cross-ways and gaped hideously. His +own drawings had been ripped in pieces; and the photographs, Manet’s +Olympia and the Odalisque of Ingres, the portrait of Philip IV, had been +smashed with great blows of the coal-hammer. There were gashes in the +table-cloth and in the curtains and in the two arm-chairs. They were quite +ruined. On one wall over the table which Philip used as his desk was the little +bit of Persian rug which Cronshaw had given him. Mildred had always hated it. +</p> + +<p> +“If it’s a rug it ought to go on the floor,” she said, +“and it’s a dirty stinking bit of stuff, that’s all it +is.” +</p> + +<p> +It made her furious because Philip told her it contained the answer to a great +riddle. She thought he was making fun of her. She had drawn the knife right +through it three times, it must have required some strength, and it hung now in +tatters. Philip had two or three blue and white plates, of no value, but he had +bought them one by one for very small sums and liked them for their +associations. They littered the floor in fragments. There were long gashes on +the backs of his books, and she had taken the trouble to tear pages out of the +unbound French ones. The little ornaments on the chimney-piece lay on the +hearth in bits. Everything that it had been possible to destroy with a knife or +a hammer was destroyed. +</p> + +<p> +The whole of Philip’s belongings would not have sold for thirty pounds, +but most of them were old friends, and he was a domestic creature, attached to +all those odds and ends because they were his; he had been proud of his little +home, and on so little money had made it pretty and characteristic. He sank +down now in despair. He asked himself how she could have been so cruel. A +sudden fear got him on his feet again and into the passage, where stood a +cupboard in which he kept his clothes. He opened it and gave a sigh of relief. +She had apparently forgotten it and none of his things was touched. +</p> + +<p> +He went back into the sitting-room and, surveying the scene, wondered what to +do; he had not the heart to begin trying to set things straight; besides there +was no food in the house, and he was hungry. He went out and got himself +something to eat. When he came in he was cooler. A little pang seized him as he +thought of the child, and he wondered whether she would miss him, at first +perhaps, but in a week she would have forgotten him; and he was thankful to be +rid of Mildred. He did not think of her with wrath, but with an overwhelming +sense of boredom. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope to God I never see her again,” he said aloud. +</p> + +<p> +The only thing now was to leave the rooms, and he made up his mind to give +notice the next morning. He could not afford to make good the damage done, and +he had so little money left that he must find cheaper lodgings still. He would +be glad to get out of them. The expense had worried him, and now the +recollection of Mildred would be in them always. Philip was impatient and could +never rest till he had put in action the plan which he had in mind; so on the +following afternoon he got in a dealer in second-hand furniture who offered him +three pounds for all his goods damaged and undamaged; and two days later he +moved into the house opposite the hospital in which he had had rooms when first +he became a medical student. The landlady was a very decent woman. He took a +bed-room at the top, which she let him have for six shillings a week; it was +small and shabby and looked on the yard of the house that backed on to it, but +he had nothing now except his clothes and a box of books, and he was glad to +lodge so cheaply. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCVIII</h2> + +<p> +And now it happened that the fortunes of Philip Carey, of no consequence to any +but himself, were affected by the events through which his country was passing. +History was being made, and the process was so significant that it seemed +absurd it should touch the life of an obscure medical student. Battle after +battle, Magersfontein, Colenso, Spion Kop, lost on the playing fields of Eton, +had humiliated the nation and dealt the death-blow to the prestige of the +aristocracy and gentry who till then had found no one seriously to oppose their +assertion that they possessed a natural instinct of government. The old order +was being swept away: history was being made indeed. Then the colossus put +forth his strength, and, blundering again, at last blundered into the semblance +of victory. Cronje surrendered at Paardeberg, Ladysmith was relieved, and at +the beginning of March Lord Roberts marched into Bloemfontein. +</p> + +<p> +It was two or three days after the news of this reached London that Macalister +came into the tavern in Beak Street and announced joyfully that things were +looking brighter on the Stock Exchange. Peace was in sight, Roberts would march +into Pretoria within a few weeks, and shares were going up already. There was +bound to be a boom. +</p> + +<p> +“Now’s the time to come in,” he told Philip. +“It’s no good waiting till the public gets on to it. It’s now +or never.” +</p> + +<p> +He had inside information. The manager of a mine in South Africa had cabled to +the senior partner of his firm that the plant was uninjured. They would start +working again as soon as possible. It wasn’t a speculation, it was an +investment. To show how good a thing the senior partner thought it Macalister +told Philip that he had bought five hundred shares for both his sisters: he +never put them into anything that wasn’t as safe as the Bank of England. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to put my shirt on it myself,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The shares were two and an eighth to a quarter. He advised Philip not to be +greedy, but to be satisfied with a ten-shilling rise. He was buying three +hundred for himself and suggested that Philip should do the same. He would hold +them and sell when he thought fit. Philip had great faith in him, partly +because he was a Scotsman and therefore by nature cautious, and partly because +he had been right before. He jumped at the suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay we shall be able to sell before the account,” said +Macalister, “but if not, I’ll arrange to carry them over for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed a capital system to Philip. You held on till you got your profit, and +you never even had to put your hand in your pocket. He began to watch the Stock +Exchange columns of the paper with new interest. Next day everything was up a +little, and Macalister wrote to say that he had had to pay two and a quarter +for the shares. He said that the market was firm. But in a day or two there was +a set-back. The news that came from South Africa was less reassuring, and +Philip with anxiety saw that his shares had fallen to two; but Macalister was +optimistic, the Boers couldn’t hold out much longer, and he was willing +to bet a top-hat that Roberts would march into Johannesburg before the middle +of April. At the account Philip had to pay out nearly forty pounds. It worried +him considerably, but he felt that the only course was to hold on: in his +circumstances the loss was too great for him to pocket. For two or three weeks +nothing happened; the Boers would not understand that they were beaten and +nothing remained for them but to surrender: in fact they had one or two small +successes, and Philip’s shares fell half a crown more. It became evident +that the war was not finished. There was a lot of selling. When Macalister saw +Philip he was pessimistic. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not sure if the best thing wouldn’t be to cut the loss. +I’ve been paying out about as much as I want to in differences.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was sick with anxiety. He could not sleep at night; he bolted his +breakfast, reduced now to tea and bread and butter, in order to get over to the +club reading-room and see the paper; sometimes the news was bad, and sometimes +there was no news at all, but when the shares moved it was to go down. He did +not know what to do. If he sold now he would lose altogether hard on three +hundred and fifty pounds; and that would leave him only eighty pounds to go on +with. He wished with all his heart that he had never been such a fool as to +dabble on the Stock Exchange, but the only thing was to hold on; something +decisive might happen any day and the shares would go up; he did not hope now +for a profit, but he wanted to make good his loss. It was his only chance of +finishing his course at the hospital. The Summer session was beginning in May, +and at the end of it he meant to take the examination in midwifery. Then he +would only have a year more; he reckoned it out carefully and came to the +conclusion that he could manage it, fees and all, on a hundred and fifty +pounds; but that was the least it could possibly be done on. +</p> + +<p> +Early in April he went to the tavern in Beak Street anxious to see Macalister. +It eased him a little to discuss the situation with him; and to realise that +numerous people beside himself were suffering from loss of money made his own +trouble a little less intolerable. But when Philip arrived no one was there but +Hayward, and no sooner had Philip seated himself than he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sailing for the Cape on Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you!” exclaimed Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Hayward was the last person he would have expected to do anything of the kind. +At the hospital men were going out now in numbers; the Government was glad to +get anyone who was qualified; and others, going out as troopers, wrote home +that they had been put on hospital work as soon as it was learned that they +were medical students. A wave of patriotic feeling had swept over the country, +and volunteers were coming from all ranks of society. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going as?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, in the Dorset Yeomanry. I’m going as a trooper.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had known Hayward for eight years. The youthful intimacy which had come +from Philip’s enthusiastic admiration for the man who could tell him of +art and literature had long since vanished; but habit had taken its place; and +when Hayward was in London they saw one another once or twice a week. He still +talked about books with a delicate appreciation. Philip was not yet tolerant, +and sometimes Hayward’s conversation irritated him. He no longer believed +implicitly that nothing in the world was of consequence but art. He resented +Hayward’s contempt for action and success. Philip, stirring his punch, +thought of his early friendship and his ardent expectation that Hayward would +do great things; it was long since he had lost all such illusions, and he knew +now that Hayward would never do anything but talk. He found his three hundred a +year more difficult to live on now that he was thirty-five than he had when he +was a young man; and his clothes, though still made by a good tailor, were worn +a good deal longer than at one time he would have thought possible. He was too +stout and no artful arrangement of his fair hair could conceal the fact that he +was bald. His blue eyes were dull and pale. It was not hard to guess that he +drank too much. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth made you think of going out to the Cape?” asked +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know, I thought I ought to.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent. He felt rather silly. He understood that Hayward was being +driven by an uneasiness in his soul which he could not account for. Some power +within him made it seem necessary to go and fight for his country. It was +strange, since he considered patriotism no more than a prejudice, and, +flattering himself on his cosmopolitanism, he had looked upon England as a +place of exile. His countrymen in the mass wounded his susceptibilities. Philip +wondered what it was that made people do things which were so contrary to all +their theories of life. It would have been reasonable for Hayward to stand +aside and watch with a smile while the barbarians slaughtered one another. It +looked as though men were puppets in the hands of an unknown force, which drove +them to do this and that; and sometimes they used their reason to justify their +actions; and when this was impossible they did the actions in despite of +reason. +</p> + +<p> +“People are very extraordinary,” said Philip. “I should never +have expected you to go out as a trooper.” +</p> + +<p> +Hayward smiled, slightly embarrassed, and said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“I was examined yesterday,” he remarked at last. “It was +worth while undergoing the gene of it to know that one was perfectly +fit.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip noticed that he still used a French word in an affected way when an +English one would have served. But just then Macalister came in. +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to see you, Carey,” he said. “My people don’t +feel inclined to hold those shares any more, the market’s in such an +awful state, and they want you to take them up.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart sank. He knew that was impossible. It meant that he must +accept the loss. His pride made him answer calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that I think that’s worth while. You’d +better sell them.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all very fine to say that, I’m not sure if I can. The +market’s stagnant, there are no buyers.” +</p> + +<p> +“But they’re marked down at one and an eighth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t get that +for them.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not say anything for a moment. He was trying to collect himself. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you mean to say they’re worth nothing at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t say that. Of course they’re worth something, but +you see, nobody’s buying them now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you must just sell them for what you can get.” +</p> + +<p> +Macalister looked at Philip narrowly. He wondered whether he was very hard hit. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, old man, but we’re all in the same boat. +No one thought the war was going to hang on this way. I put you into them, but +I was in myself too.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Philip. “One has to +take one’s chance.” +</p> + +<p> +He moved back to the table from which he had got up to talk to Macalister. He +was dumfounded; his head suddenly began to ache furiously; but he did not want +them to think him unmanly. He sat on for an hour. He laughed feverishly at +everything they said. At last he got up to go. +</p> + +<p> +“You take it pretty coolly,” said Macalister, shaking hands with +him. “I don’t suppose anyone likes losing between three and four +hundred pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +When Philip got back to his shabby little room he flung himself on his bed, and +gave himself over to his despair. He kept on regretting his folly bitterly; and +though he told himself that it was absurd to regret for what had happened was +inevitable just because it had happened, he could not help himself. He was +utterly miserable. He could not sleep. He remembered all the ways he had wasted +money during the last few years. His head ached dreadfully. +</p> + +<p> +The following evening there came by the last post the statement of his account. +He examined his pass-book. He found that when he had paid everything he would +have seven pounds left. Seven pounds! He was thankful he had been able to pay. +It would have been horrible to be obliged to confess to Macalister that he had +not the money. He was dressing in the eye-department during the summer session, +and he had bought an ophthalmoscope off a student who had one to sell. He had +not paid for this, but he lacked the courage to tell the student that he wanted +to go back on his bargain. Also he had to buy certain books. He had about five +pounds to go on with. It lasted him six weeks; then he wrote to his uncle a +letter which he thought very business-like; he said that owing to the war he +had had grave losses and could not go on with his studies unless his uncle came +to his help. He suggested that the Vicar should lend him a hundred and fifty +pounds paid over the next eighteen months in monthly instalments; he would pay +interest on this and promised to refund the capital by degrees when he began to +earn money. He would be qualified in a year and a half at the latest, and he +could be pretty sure then of getting an assistantship at three pounds a week. +His uncle wrote back that he could do nothing. It was not fair to ask him to +sell out when everything was at its worst, and the little he had he felt that +his duty to himself made it necessary for him to keep in case of illness. He +ended the letter with a little homily. He had warned Philip time after time, +and Philip had never paid any attention to him; he could not honestly say he +was surprised; he had long expected that this would be the end of +Philip’s extravagance and want of balance. Philip grew hot and cold when +he read this. It had never occurred to him that his uncle would refuse, and he +burst into furious anger; but this was succeeded by utter blankness: if his +uncle would not help him he could not go on at the hospital. Panic seized him +and, putting aside his pride, he wrote again to the Vicar of Blackstable, +placing the case before him more urgently; but perhaps he did not explain +himself properly and his uncle did not realise in what desperate straits he +was, for he answered that he could not change his mind; Philip was twenty-five +and really ought to be earning his living. When he died Philip would come into +a little, but till then he refused to give him a penny. Philip felt in the +letter the satisfaction of a man who for many years had disapproved of his +courses and now saw himself justified. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>XCIX</h2> + +<p> +Philip began to pawn his clothes. He reduced his expenses by eating only one +meal a day beside his breakfast; and he ate it, bread and butter and cocoa, at +four so that it should last him till next morning. He was so hungry by nine +o’clock that he had to go to bed. He thought of borrowing money from +Lawson, but the fear of a refusal held him back; at last he asked him for five +pounds. Lawson lent it with pleasure, but, as he did so, said: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll let me have it back in a week or so, won’t you? +I’ve got to pay my framer, and I’m awfully broke just now.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip knew he would not be able to return it, and the thought of what Lawson +would think made him so ashamed that in a couple of days he took the money back +untouched. Lawson was just going out to luncheon and asked Philip to come too. +Philip could hardly eat, he was so glad to get some solid food. On Sunday he +was sure of a good dinner from Athelny. He hesitated to tell the Athelnys what +had happened to him: they had always looked upon him as comparatively +well-to-do, and he had a dread that they would think less well of him if they +knew he was penniless. +</p> + +<p> +Though he had always been poor, the possibility of not having enough to eat had +never occurred to him; it was not the sort of thing that happened to the people +among whom he lived; and he was as ashamed as if he had some disgraceful +disease. The situation in which he found himself was quite outside the range of +his experience. He was so taken aback that he did not know what else to do than +to go on at the hospital; he had a vague hope that something would turn up; he +could not quite believe that what was happening to him was true; and he +remembered how during his first term at school he had often thought his life +was a dream from which he would awake to find himself once more at home. But +very soon he foresaw that in a week or so he would have no money at all. He +must set about trying to earn something at once. If he had been qualified, even +with a club-foot, he could have gone out to the Cape, since the demand for +medical men was now great. Except for his deformity he might have enlisted in +one of the yeomanry regiments which were constantly being sent out. He went to +the secretary of the Medical School and asked if he could give him the coaching +of some backward student; but the secretary held out no hope of getting him +anything of the sort. Philip read the advertisement columns of the medical +papers, and he applied for the post of unqualified assistant to a man who had a +dispensary in the Fulham Road. When he went to see him, he saw the doctor +glance at his club-foot; and on hearing that Philip was only in his fourth year +at the hospital he said at once that his experience was insufficient: Philip +understood that this was only an excuse; the man would not have an assistant +who might not be as active as he wanted. Philip turned his attention to other +means of earning money. He knew French and German and thought there might be +some chance of finding a job as correspondence clerk; it made his heart sink, +but he set his teeth; there was nothing else to do. Though too shy to answer +the advertisements which demanded a personal application, he replied to those +which asked for letters; but he had no experience to state and no +recommendations: he was conscious that neither his German nor his French was +commercial; he was ignorant of the terms used in business; he knew neither +shorthand nor typewriting. He could not help recognising that his case was +hopeless. He thought of writing to the solicitor who had been his +father’s executor, but he could not bring himself to, for it was contrary +to his express advice that he had sold the mortgages in which his money had +been invested. He knew from his uncle that Mr. Nixon thoroughly disapproved of +him. He had gathered from Philip’s year in the accountant’s office +that he was idle and incompetent. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d sooner starve,” Philip muttered to himself. +</p> + +<p> +Once or twice the possibility of suicide presented itself to him; it would be +easy to get something from the hospital dispensary, and it was a comfort to +think that if the worst came to the worst he had at hand means of making a +painless end of himself; but it was not a course that he considered seriously. +When Mildred had left him to go with Griffiths his anguish had been so great +that he wanted to die in order to get rid of the pain. He did not feel like +that now. He remembered that the Casualty Sister had told him how people +oftener did away with themselves for want of money than for want of love; and +he chuckled when he thought that he was an exception. He wished only that he +could talk his worries over with somebody, but he could not bring himself to +confess them. He was ashamed. He went on looking for work. He left his rent +unpaid for three weeks, explaining to his landlady that he would get money at +the end of the month; she did not say anything, but pursed her lips and looked +grim. When the end of the month came and she asked if it would be convenient +for him to pay something on account, it made him feel very sick to say that he +could not; he told her he would write to his uncle and was sure to be able to +settle his bill on the following Saturday. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I ’ope you will, Mr. Carey, because I ’ave my rent to +pay, and I can’t afford to let accounts run on.” She did not speak +with anger, but with determination that was rather frightening. She paused for +a moment and then said: “If you don’t pay next Saturday, I shall +’ave to complain to the secretary of the ’ospital.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, that’ll be all right.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him for a little and glanced round the bare room. When she spoke +it was without any emphasis, as though it were quite a natural thing to say. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a nice ’ot joint downstairs, and if you like to +come down to the kitchen you’re welcome to a bit of dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt himself redden to the soles of his feet, and a sob caught at his +throat. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, Mrs. Higgins, but I’m not at all +hungry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +When she left the room Philip threw himself on his bed. He had to clench his +fists in order to prevent himself from crying. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>C</h2> + +<p> +Saturday. It was the day on which he had promised to pay his landlady. He had +been expecting something to turn up all through the week. He had found no work. +He had never been driven to extremities before, and he was so dazed that he did +not know what to do. He had at the back of his mind a feeling that the whole +thing was a preposterous joke. He had no more than a few coppers left, he had +sold all the clothes he could do without; he had some books and one or two odds +and ends upon which he might have got a shilling or two, but the landlady was +keeping an eye on his comings and goings: he was afraid she would stop him if +he took anything more from his room. The only thing was to tell her that he +could not pay his bill. He had not the courage. It was the middle of June. The +night was fine and warm. He made up his mind to stay out. He walked slowly +along the Chelsea Embankment, because the river was restful and quiet, till he +was tired, and then sat on a bench and dozed. He did not know how long he +slept; he awoke with a start, dreaming that he was being shaken by a policeman +and told to move on; but when he opened his eyes he found himself alone. He +walked on, he did not know why, and at last came to Chiswick, where he slept +again. Presently the hardness of the bench roused him. The night seemed very +long. He shivered. He was seized with a sense of his misery; and he did not +know what on earth to do: he was ashamed at having slept on the Embankment; it +seemed peculiarly humiliating, and he felt his cheeks flush in the darkness. He +remembered stories he had heard of those who did and how among them were +officers, clergymen, and men who had been to universities: he wondered if he +would become one of them, standing in a line to get soup from a charitable +institution. It would be much better to commit suicide. He could not go on like +that: Lawson would help him when he knew what straits he was in; it was absurd +to let his pride prevent him from asking for assistance. He wondered why he had +come such a cropper. He had always tried to do what he thought best, and +everything had gone wrong. He had helped people when he could, he did not think +he had been more selfish than anyone else, it seemed horribly unjust that he +should be reduced to such a pass. +</p> + +<p> +But it was no good thinking about it. He walked on. It was now light: the river +was beautiful in the silence, and there was something mysterious in the early +day; it was going to be very fine, and the sky, pale in the dawn, was +cloudless. He felt very tired, and hunger was gnawing at his entrails, but he +could not sit still; he was constantly afraid of being spoken to by a +policeman. He dreaded the mortification of that. He felt dirty and wished he +could have a wash. At last he found himself at Hampton Court. He felt that if +he did not have something to eat he would cry. He chose a cheap eating-house +and went in; there was a smell of hot things, and it made him feel slightly +sick: he meant to eat something nourishing enough to keep up for the rest of +the day, but his stomach revolted at the sight of food. He had a cup of tea and +some bread and butter. He remembered then that it was Sunday and he could go to +the Athelnys; he thought of the roast beef and the Yorkshire pudding they would +eat; but he was fearfully tired and could not face the happy, noisy family. He +was feeling morose and wretched. He wanted to be left alone. He made up his +mind that he would go into the gardens of the palace and lie down. His bones +ached. Perhaps he would find a pump so that he could wash his hands and face +and drink something; he was very thirsty; and now that he was no longer hungry +he thought with pleasure of the flowers and the lawns and the great leafy +trees. He felt that there he could think out better what he must do. He lay on +the grass, in the shade, and lit his pipe. For economy’s sake he had for +a long time confined himself to two pipes a day; he was thankful now that his +pouch was full. He did not know what people did when they had no money. +Presently he fell asleep. When he awoke it was nearly mid-day, and he thought +that soon he must be setting out for London so as to be there in the early +morning and answer any advertisements which seemed to promise. He thought of +his uncle, who had told him that he would leave him at his death the little he +had; Philip did not in the least know how much this was: it could not be more +than a few hundred pounds. He wondered whether he could raise money on the +reversion. Not without the old man’s consent, and that he would never +give. +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing I can do is to hang on somehow till he dies.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reckoned his age. The Vicar of Blackstable was well over seventy. He had +chronic bronchitis, but many old men had that and lived on indefinitely. +Meanwhile something must turn up; Philip could not get away from the feeling +that his position was altogether abnormal; people in his particular station did +not starve. It was because he could not bring himself to believe in the reality +of his experience that he did not give way to utter despair. He made up his +mind to borrow half a sovereign from Lawson. He stayed in the garden all day +and smoked when he felt very hungry; he did not mean to eat anything until he +was setting out again for London: it was a long way and he must keep up his +strength for that. He started when the day began to grow cooler, and slept on +benches when he was tired. No one disturbed him. He had a wash and brush up, +and a shave at Victoria, some tea and bread and butter, and while he was eating +this read the advertisement columns of the morning paper. As he looked down +them his eye fell upon an announcement asking for a salesman in the +‘furnishing drapery’ department of some well-known stores. He had a +curious little sinking of the heart, for with his middle-class prejudices it +seemed dreadful to go into a shop; but he shrugged his shoulders, after all +what did it matter? and he made up his mind to have a shot at it. He had a +queer feeling that by accepting every humiliation, by going out to meet it +even, he was forcing the hand of fate. When he presented himself, feeling +horribly shy, in the department at nine o’clock he found that many others +were there before him. They were of all ages, from boys of sixteen to men of +forty; some were talking to one another in undertones, but most were silent; +and when he took up his place those around him gave him a look of hostility. He +heard one man say: +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing I look forward to is getting my refusal soon enough to +give me time to look elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +The man, standing next him, glanced at Philip and asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Had any experience?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He paused a moment and then made a remark: “Even the smaller houses +won’t see you without appointment after lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at the assistants. Some were draping chintzes and cretonnes, and +others, his neighbour told him were preparing country orders that had come in +by post. At about a quarter past nine the buyer arrived. He heard one of the +men who were waiting say to another that it was Mr. Gibbons. He was +middle-aged, short and corpulent, with a black beard and dark, greasy hair. He +had brisk movements and a clever face. He wore a silk hat and a frock coat, the +lapel of which was adorned with a white geranium surrounded by leaves. He went +into his office, leaving the door open; it was very small and contained only an +American roll-desk in the corner, a bookcase, and a cupboard. The men standing +outside watched him mechanically take the geranium out of his coat and put it +in an ink-pot filled with water. It was against the rules to wear flowers in +business. +</p> + +<p> +During the day the department men who wanted to keep in with the governor +admired the flower. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never seen better,” they said, “you didn’t +grow it yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes I did,” he smiled, and a gleam of pride filled his intelligent +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He took off his hat and changed his coat, glanced at the letters and then at +the men who were waiting to see him. He made a slight sign with one finger, and +the first in the queue stepped into the office. They filed past him one by one +and answered his questions. He put them very briefly, keeping his eyes fixed on +the applicant’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Age? Experience? Why did you leave your job?” +</p> + +<p> +He listened to the replies without expression. When it came to Philip’s +turn he fancied that Mr. Gibbons stared at him curiously. Philip’s +clothes were neat and tolerably cut. He looked a little different from the +others. +</p> + +<p> +“Experience?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I haven’t any,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“No good.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip walked out of the office. The ordeal had been so much less painful than +he expected that he felt no particular disappointment. He could hardly hope to +succeed in getting a place the first time he tried. He had kept the newspaper +and now looked at the advertisements again: a shop in Holborn needed a salesman +too, and he went there; but when he arrived he found that someone had already +been engaged. If he wanted to get anything to eat that day he must go to +Lawson’s studio before he went out to luncheon, so he made his way along +the Brompton Road to Yeoman’s Row. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m rather broke till the end of the month,” he said +as soon as he found an opportunity. “I wish you’d lend me half a +sovereign, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +It was incredible the difficulty he found in asking for money; and he +remembered the casual way, as though almost they were conferring a favour, men +at the hospital had extracted small sums out of him which they had no intention +of repaying. +</p> + +<p> +“Like a shot,” said Lawson. +</p> + +<p> +But when he put his hand in his pocket he found that he had only eight +shillings. Philip’s heart sank. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh well, lend me five bob, will you?” he said lightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Here you are.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip went to the public baths in Westminster and spent sixpence on a bath. +Then he got himself something to eat. He did not know what to do with himself +in the afternoon. He would not go back to the hospital in case anyone should +ask him questions, and besides, he had nothing to do there now; they would +wonder in the two or three departments he had worked in why he did not come, +but they must think what they chose, it did not matter: he would not be the +first student who had dropped out without warning. He went to the free library, +and looked at the papers till they wearied him, then he took out +Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights; but he found he could not read: the words +meant nothing to him, and he continued to brood over his helplessness. He kept +on thinking the same things all the time, and the fixity of his thoughts made +his head ache. At last, craving for fresh air, he went into the Green Park and +lay down on the grass. He thought miserably of his deformity, which made it +impossible for him to go to the war. He went to sleep and dreamt that he was +suddenly sound of foot and out at the Cape in a regiment of Yeomanry; the +pictures he had looked at in the illustrated papers gave materials for his +fancy; and he saw himself on the Veldt, in khaki, sitting with other men round +a fire at night. When he awoke he found that it was still quite light, and +presently he heard Big Ben strike seven. He had twelve hours to get through +with nothing to do. He dreaded the interminable night. The sky was overcast and +he feared it would rain; he would have to go to a lodging-house where he could +get a bed; he had seen them advertised on lamps outside houses in Lambeth: Good +Beds sixpence; he had never been inside one, and dreaded the foul smell and the +vermin. He made up his mind to stay in the open air if he possibly could. He +remained in the park till it was closed and then began to walk about. He was +very tired. The thought came to him that an accident would be a piece of luck, +so that he could be taken to a hospital and lie there, in a clean bed, for +weeks. At midnight he was so hungry that he could not go without food any more, +so he went to a coffee stall at Hyde Park Corner and ate a couple of potatoes +and had a cup of coffee. Then he walked again. He felt too restless to sleep, +and he had a horrible dread of being moved on by the police. He noted that he +was beginning to look upon the constable from quite a new angle. This was the +third night he had spent out. Now and then he sat on the benches in Piccadilly +and towards morning he strolled down to The Embankment. He listened to the +striking of Big Ben, marking every quarter of an hour, and reckoned out how +long it left till the city woke again. In the morning he spent a few coppers on +making himself neat and clean, bought a paper to read the advertisements, and +set out once more on the search for work. +</p> + +<p> +He went on in this way for several days. He had very little food and began to +feel weak and ill, so that he had hardly enough energy to go on looking for the +work which seemed so desperately hard to find. He was growing used now to the +long waiting at the back of a shop on the chance that he would be taken on, and +the curt dismissal. He walked to all parts of London in answer to the +advertisements, and he came to know by sight men who applied as fruitlessly as +himself. One or two tried to make friends with him, but he was too tired and +too wretched to accept their advances. He did not go any more to Lawson, +because he owed him five shillings. He began to be too dazed to think clearly +and ceased very much to care what would happen to him. He cried a good deal. At +first he was very angry with himself for this and ashamed, but he found it +relieved him, and somehow made him feel less hungry. In the very early morning +he suffered a good deal from cold. One night he went into his room to change +his linen; he slipped in about three, when he was quite sure everyone would be +asleep, and out again at five; he lay on the bed and its softness was +enchanting; all his bones ached, and as he lay he revelled in the pleasure of +it; it was so delicious that he did not want to go to sleep. He was growing +used to want of food and did not feel very hungry, but only weak. Constantly +now at the back of his mind was the thought of doing away with himself, but he +used all the strength he had not to dwell on it, because he was afraid the +temptation would get hold of him so that he would not be able to help himself. +He kept on saying to himself that it would be absurd to commit suicide, since +something must happen soon; he could not get over the impression that his +situation was too preposterous to be taken quite seriously; it was like an +illness which must be endured but from which he was bound to recover. Every +night he swore that nothing would induce him to put up with such another and +determined next morning to write to his uncle, or to Mr. Nixon, the solicitor, +or to Lawson; but when the time came he could not bring himself to make the +humiliating confession of his utter failure. He did not know how Lawson would +take it. In their friendship Lawson had been scatter-brained and he had prided +himself on his common sense. He would have to tell the whole history of his +folly. He had an uneasy feeling that Lawson, after helping him, would turn the +cold shoulder on him. His uncle and the solicitor would of course do something +for him, but he dreaded their reproaches. He did not want anyone to reproach +him: he clenched his teeth and repeated that what had happened was inevitable +just because it had happened. Regret was absurd. +</p> + +<p> +The days were unending, and the five shillings Lawson had lent him would not +last much longer. Philip longed for Sunday to come so that he could go to +Athelny’s. He did not know what prevented him from going there sooner, +except perhaps that he wanted so badly to get through on his own; for Athelny, +who had been in straits as desperate, was the only person who could do anything +for him. Perhaps after dinner he could bring himself to tell Athelny that he +was in difficulties. Philip repeated to himself over and over again what he +should say to him. He was dreadfully afraid that Athelny would put him off with +airy phrases: that would be so horrible that he wanted to delay as long as +possible the putting of him to the test. Philip had lost all confidence in his +fellows. +</p> + +<p> +Saturday night was cold and raw. Philip suffered horribly. From midday on +Saturday till he dragged himself wearily to Athelny’s house he ate +nothing. He spent his last twopence on Sunday morning on a wash and a brush up +in the lavatory at Charing Cross. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CI</h2> + +<p> +When Philip rang a head was put out of the window, and in a minute he heard a +noisy clatter on the stairs as the children ran down to let him in. It was a +pale, anxious, thin face that he bent down for them to kiss. He was so moved by +their exuberant affection that, to give himself time to recover, he made +excuses to linger on the stairs. He was in a hysterical state and almost +anything was enough to make him cry. They asked him why he had not come on the +previous Sunday, and he told them he had been ill; they wanted to know what was +the matter with him; and Philip, to amuse them, suggested a mysterious ailment, +the name of which, double-barrelled and barbarous with its mixture of Greek and +Latin (medical nomenclature bristled with such), made them shriek with delight. +They dragged Philip into the parlour and made him repeat it for their +father’s edification. Athelny got up and shook hands with him. He stared +at Philip, but with his round, bulging eyes he always seemed to stare, Philip +did not know why on this occasion it made him self-conscious. +</p> + +<p> +“We missed you last Sunday,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip could never tell lies without embarrassment, and he was scarlet when he +finished his explanation for not coming. Then Mrs. Athelny entered and shook +hands with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’re better, Mr. Carey,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He did not know why she imagined that anything had been the matter with him, +for the kitchen door was closed when he came up with the children, and they had +not left him. +</p> + +<p> +“Dinner won’t be ready for another ten minutes,” she said, in +her slow drawl. “Won’t you have an egg beaten up in a glass of milk +while you’re waiting?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a look of concern on her face which made Philip uncomfortable. He +forced a laugh and answered that he was not at all hungry. Sally came in to lay +the table, and Philip began to chaff her. It was the family joke that she would +be as fat as an aunt of Mrs. Athelny, called Aunt Elizabeth, whom the children +had never seen but regarded as the type of obscene corpulence. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, what HAS happened since I saw you last, Sally?” Philip +began. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing that I know of.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you’ve been putting on weight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you haven’t,” she retorted. +“You’re a perfect skeleton.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a tu quoque, Sally,” cried her father. “You +will be fined one golden hair of your head. Jane, fetch the shears.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he is thin, father,” remonstrated Sally. “He’s +just skin and bone.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not the question, child. He is at perfect liberty to be +thin, but your obesity is contrary to decorum.” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke he put his arm proudly round her waist and looked at her with +admiring eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me get on with the table, father. If I am comfortable there are some +who don’t seem to mind it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The hussy!” cried Athelny, with a dramatic wave of the hand. +“She taunts me with the notorious fact that Joseph, a son of Levi who +sells jewels in Holborn, has made her an offer of marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you accepted him, Sally?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know father better than that by this time? There’s +not a word of truth in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if he hasn’t made you an offer of marriage,” cried +Athelny, “by Saint George and Merry England, I will seize him by the nose +and demand of him immediately what are his intentions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, father, dinner’s ready. Now then, you children, get +along with you and wash your hands all of you, and don’t shirk it, +because I mean to look at them before you have a scrap of dinner, so +there.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought he was ravenous till he began to eat, but then discovered that +his stomach turned against food, and he could eat hardly at all. His brain was +weary; and he did not notice that Athelny, contrary to his habit, spoke very +little. Philip was relieved to be sitting in a comfortable house, but every now +and then he could not prevent himself from glancing out of the window. The day +was tempestuous. The fine weather had broken; and it was cold, and there was a +bitter wind; now and again gusts of rain drove against the window. Philip +wondered what he should do that night. The Athelnys went to bed early, and he +could not stay where he was after ten o’clock. His heart sank at the +thought of going out into the bleak darkness. It seemed more terrible now that +he was with his friends than when he was outside and alone. He kept on saying +to himself that there were plenty more who would be spending the night out of +doors. He strove to distract his mind by talking, but in the middle of his +words a spatter of rain against the window would make him start. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like March weather,” said Athelny. “Not the sort +of day one would like to be crossing the Channel.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently they finished, and Sally came in and cleared away. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like a twopenny stinker?” said Athelny, handing him a +cigar. +</p> + +<p> +Philip took it and inhaled the smoke with delight. It soothed him +extraordinarily. When Sally had finished Athelny told her to shut the door +after her. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we shan’t be disturbed,” he said, turning to Philip. +“I’ve arranged with Betty not to let the children come in till I +call them.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip gave him a startled look, but before he could take in the meaning of his +words, Athelny, fixing his glasses on his nose with the gesture habitual to +him, went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I wrote to you last Sunday to ask if anything was the matter with you, +and as you didn’t answer I went to your rooms on Wednesday.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip turned his head away and did not answer. His heart began to beat +violently. Athelny did not speak, and presently the silence seemed intolerable +to Philip. He could not think of a single word to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Your landlady told me you hadn’t been in since Saturday night, and +she said you owed her for the last month. Where have you been sleeping all this +week?” +</p> + +<p> +It made Philip sick to answer. He stared out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Nowhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tried to find you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Betty and I have been just as broke in our day, only we had babies to +look after. Why didn’t you come here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was afraid he was going to cry. He felt very weak. He shut his eyes and +frowned, trying to control himself. He felt a sudden flash of anger with +Athelny because he would not leave him alone; but he was broken; and presently, +his eyes still closed, slowly in order to keep his voice steady, he told him +the story of his adventures during the last few weeks. As he spoke it seemed to +him that he had behaved inanely, and it made it still harder to tell. He felt +that Athelny would think him an utter fool. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’re coming to live with us till you find something to +do,” said Athelny, when he had finished. +</p> + +<p> +Philip flushed, he knew not why. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s awfully kind of you, but I don’t think I’ll +do that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not answer. He had refused instinctively from fear that he would be +a bother, and he had a natural bashfulness of accepting favours. He knew +besides that the Athelnys lived from hand to mouth, and with their large family +had neither space nor money to entertain a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you must come here,” said Athelny. “Thorpe will +tuck in with one of his brothers and you can sleep in his bed. You don’t +suppose your food’s going to make any difference to us.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was afraid to speak, and Athelny, going to the door, called his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Betty,” he said, when she came in, “Mr. Carey’s coming +to live with us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that is nice,” she said. “I’ll go and get the bed +ready.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke in such a hearty, friendly tone, taking everything for granted, that +Philip was deeply touched. He never expected people to be kind to him, and when +they were it surprised and moved him. Now he could not prevent two large tears +from rolling down his cheeks. The Athelnys discussed the arrangements and +pretended not to notice to what a state his weakness had brought him. When Mrs. +Athelny left them Philip leaned back in his chair, and looking out of the +window laughed a little. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not a very nice night to be out, is it?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CII</h2> + +<p> +Athelny told Philip that he could easily get him something to do in the large +firm of linendrapers in which himself worked. Several of the assistants had +gone to the war, and Lynn and Sedley with patriotic zeal had promised to keep +their places open for them. They put the work of the heroes on those who +remained, and since they did not increase the wages of these were able at once +to exhibit public spirit and effect an economy; but the war continued and trade +was less depressed; the holidays were coming, when numbers of the staff went +away for a fortnight at a time: they were bound to engage more assistants. +Philip’s experience had made him doubtful whether even then they would +engage him; but Athelny, representing himself as a person of consequence in the +firm, insisted that the manager could refuse him nothing. Philip, with his +training in Paris, would be very useful; it was only a matter of waiting a +little and he was bound to get a well-paid job to design costumes and draw +posters. Philip made a poster for the summer sale and Athelny took it away. Two +days later he brought it back, saying that the manager admired it very much and +regretted with all his heart that there was no vacancy just then in that +department. Philip asked whether there was nothing else he could do. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you quite sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the fact is they’re advertising for a shop-walker +tomorrow,” said Athelny, looking at him doubtfully through his glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you think I stand any chance of getting it?” +</p> + +<p> +Athelny was a little confused; he had led Philip to expect something much more +splendid; on the other hand he was too poor to go on providing him indefinitely +with board and lodging. +</p> + +<p> +“You might take it while you wait for something better. You always stand +a better chance if you’re engaged by the firm already.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not proud, you know,” smiled Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“If you decide on that you must be there at a quarter to nine tomorrow +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding the war there was evidently much difficulty in finding work, +for when Philip went to the shop many men were waiting already. He recognised +some whom he had seen in his own searching, and there was one whom he had +noticed lying about the park in the afternoon. To Philip now that suggested +that he was as homeless as himself and passed the night out of doors. The men +were of all sorts, old and young, tall and short; but every one had tried to +make himself smart for the interview with the manager: they had carefully +brushed hair and scrupulously clean hands. They waited in a passage which +Philip learnt afterwards led up to the dining-hall and the work rooms; it was +broken every few yards by five or six steps. Though there was electric light in +the shop here was only gas, with wire cages over it for protection, and it +flared noisily. Philip arrived punctually, but it was nearly ten o’clock +when he was admitted into the office. It was three-cornered, like a cut of +cheese lying on its side: on the walls were pictures of women in corsets, and +two poster-proofs, one of a man in pyjamas, green and white in large stripes, +and the other of a ship in full sail ploughing an azure sea: on the sail was +printed in large letters ‘great white sale.’ The widest side of the +office was the back of one of the shop-windows, which was being dressed at the +time, and an assistant went to and fro during the interview. The manager was +reading a letter. He was a florid man, with sandy hair and a large sandy +moustache; from the middle of his watch-chain hung a bunch of football medals. +He sat in his shirt sleeves at a large desk with a telephone by his side; +before him were the day’s advertisements, Athelny’s work, and +cuttings from newspapers pasted on a card. He gave Philip a glance but did not +speak to him; he dictated a letter to the typist, a girl who sat at a small +table in one corner; then he asked Philip his name, age, and what experience he +had had. He spoke with a cockney twang in a high, metallic voice which he +seemed not able always to control; Philip noticed that his upper teeth were +large and protruding; they gave you the impression that they were loose and +would come out if you gave them a sharp tug. +</p> + +<p> +“I think Mr. Athelny has spoken to you about me,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are the young feller who did that poster?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“No good to us, you know, not a bit of good.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked Philip up and down. He seemed to notice that Philip was in some way +different from the men who had preceded him. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d ’ave to get a frock coat, you know. I suppose you +’aven’t got one. You seem a respectable young feller. I suppose you +found art didn’t pay.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip could not tell whether he meant to engage him or not. He threw remarks +at him in a hostile way. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s your home?” +</p> + +<p> +“My father and mother died when I was a child.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like to give young fellers a chance. Many’s the one I’ve +given their chance to and they’re managers of departments now. And +they’re grateful to me, I’ll say that for them. They know what I +done for them. Start at the bottom of the ladder, that’s the only way to +learn the business, and then if you stick to it there’s no knowing what +it can lead to. If you suit, one of these days you may find yourself in a +position like what mine is. Bear that in mind, young feller.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very anxious to do my best, sir,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He knew that he must put in the sir whenever he could, but it sounded odd to +him, and he was afraid of overdoing it. The manager liked talking. It gave him +a happy consciousness of his own importance, and he did not give Philip his +decision till he had used a great many words. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I daresay you’ll do,” he said at last, in a pompous +way. “Anyhow I don’t mind giving you a trial.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can start at once. I’ll give you six shillings a week and your +keep. Everything found, you know; the six shillings is only pocket money, to do +what you like with, paid monthly. Start on Monday. I suppose you’ve got +no cause of complaint with that.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Harrington Street, d’you know where that is, Shaftesbury Avenue. +That’s where you sleep. Number ten, it is. You can sleep there on Sunday +night, if you like; that’s just as you please, or you can send your box +there on Monday.” The manager nodded: “Good-morning.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CIII</h2> + +<p> +Mrs. Athelny lent Philip money to pay his landlady enough of her bill to let +him take his things away. For five shillings and the pawn-ticket on a suit he +was able to get from a pawnbroker a frock coat which fitted him fairly well. He +redeemed the rest of his clothes. He sent his box to Harrington Street by +Carter Patterson and on Monday morning went with Athelny to the shop. Athelny +introduced him to the buyer of the costumes and left him. The buyer was a +pleasant, fussy little man of thirty, named Sampson; he shook hands with +Philip, and, in order to show his own accomplishment of which he was very +proud, asked him if he spoke French. He was surprised when Philip told him he +did. +</p> + +<p> +“Any other language?” +</p> + +<p> +“I speak German.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I go over to Paris myself occasionally. Parlez-vous francais? Ever +been to Maxim’s?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was stationed at the top of the stairs in the ‘costumes.’ +His work consisted in directing people to the various departments. There seemed +a great many of them as Mr. Sampson tripped them off his tongue. Suddenly he +noticed that Philip limped. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with your leg?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a club-foot,” said Philip. “But it +doesn’t prevent my walking or anything like that.” +</p> + +<p> +The buyer looked at it for a moment doubtfully, and Philip surmised that he was +wondering why the manager had engaged him. Philip knew that he had not noticed +there was anything the matter with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t expect you to get them all correct the first day. If +you’re in any doubt all you’ve got to do is to ask one of the young +ladies.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Sampson turned away; and Philip, trying to remember where this or the other +department was, watched anxiously for the customer in search of information. At +one o’clock he went up to dinner. The dining-room, on the top floor of +the vast building, was large, long, and well lit; but all the windows were shut +to keep out the dust, and there was a horrid smell of cooking. There were long +tables covered with cloths, with big glass bottles of water at intervals, and +down the centre salt cellars and bottles of vinegar. The assistants crowded in +noisily, and sat down on forms still warm from those who had dined at +twelve-thirty. +</p> + +<p> +“No pickles,” remarked the man next to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He was a tall thin young man, with a hooked nose and a pasty face; he had a +long head, unevenly shaped as though the skull had been pushed in here and +there oddly, and on his forehead and neck were large acne spots red and +inflamed. His name was Harris. Philip discovered that on some days there were +large soup-plates down the table full of mixed pickles. They were very popular. +There were no knives and forks, but in a minute a large fat boy in a white coat +came in with a couple of handfuls of them and threw them loudly on the middle +of the table. Each man took what he wanted; they were warm and greasy from +recent washing in dirty water. Plates of meat swimming in gravy were handed +round by boys in white jackets, and as they flung each plate down with the +quick gesture of a prestidigitator the gravy slopped over on to the +table-cloth. Then they brought large dishes of cabbages and potatoes; the sight +of them turned Philip’s stomach; he noticed that everyone poured +quantities of vinegar over them. The noise was awful. They talked and laughed +and shouted, and there was the clatter of knives and forks, and strange sounds +of eating. Philip was glad to get back into the department. He was beginning to +remember where each one was, and had less often to ask one of the assistants, +when somebody wanted to know the way. +</p> + +<p> +“First to the right. Second on the left, madam.” +</p> + +<p> +One or two of the girls spoke to him, just a word when things were slack, and +he felt they were taking his measure. At five he was sent up again to the +dining-room for tea. He was glad to sit down. There were large slices of bread +heavily spread with butter; and many had pots of jam, which were kept in the +‘store’ and had their names written on. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was exhausted when work stopped at half past six. Harris, the man he had +sat next to at dinner, offered to take him over to Harrington Street to show +him where he was to sleep. He told Philip there was a spare bed in his room, +and, as the other rooms were full, he expected Philip would be put there. The +house in Harrington Street had been a bootmaker’s; and the shop was used +as a bed-room; but it was very dark, since the window had been boarded three +parts up, and as this did not open the only ventilation came from a small +skylight at the far end. There was a musty smell, and Philip was thankful that +he would not have to sleep there. Harris took him up to the sitting-room, which +was on the first floor; it had an old piano in it with a keyboard that looked +like a row of decayed teeth; and on the table in a cigar-box without a lid was +a set of dominoes; old numbers of The Strand Magazine and of The Graphic were +lying about. The other rooms were used as bed-rooms. That in which Philip was +to sleep was at the top of the house. There were six beds in it, and a trunk or +a box stood by the side of each. The only furniture was a chest of drawers: it +had four large drawers and two small ones, and Philip as the new-comer had one +of these; there were keys to them, but as they were all alike they were not of +much use, and Harris advised him to keep his valuables in his trunk. There was +a looking-glass on the chimney-piece. Harris showed Philip the lavatory, which +was a fairly large room with eight basins in a row, and here all the inmates +did their washing. It led into another room in which were two baths, +discoloured, the woodwork stained with soap; and in them were dark rings at +various intervals which indicated the water marks of different baths. +</p> + +<p> +When Harris and Philip went back to their bed-room they found a tall man +changing his clothes and a boy of sixteen whistling as loud as he could while +he brushed his hair. In a minute or two without saying a word to anybody the +tall man went out. Harris winked at the boy, and the boy, whistling still, +winked back. Harris told Philip that the man was called Prior; he had been in +the army and now served in the silks; he kept pretty much to himself, and he +went off every night, just like that, without so much as a good-evening, to see +his girl. Harris went out too, and only the boy remained to watch Philip +curiously while he unpacked his things. His name was Bell and he was serving +his time for nothing in the haberdashery. He was much interested in +Philip’s evening clothes. He told him about the other men in the room and +asked him every sort of question about himself. He was a cheerful youth, and in +the intervals of conversation sang in a half-broken voice snatches of +music-hall songs. When Philip had finished he went out to walk about the +streets and look at the crowd; occasionally he stopped outside the doors of +restaurants and watched the people going in; he felt hungry, so he bought a +bath bun and ate it while he strolled along. He had been given a latch-key by +the prefect, the man who turned out the gas at a quarter past eleven, but +afraid of being locked out he returned in good time; he had learned already the +system of fines: you had to pay a shilling if you came in after eleven, and +half a crown after a quarter past, and you were reported besides: if it +happened three times you were dismissed. +</p> + +<p> +All but the soldier were in when Philip arrived and two were already in bed. +Philip was greeted with cries. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Clarence! Naughty boy!” +</p> + +<p> +He discovered that Bell had dressed up the bolster in his evening clothes. The +boy was delighted with his joke. +</p> + +<p> +“You must wear them at the social evening, Clarence.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll catch the belle of Lynn’s, if he’s not +careful.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had already heard of the social evenings, for the money stopped from the +wages to pay for them was one of the grievances of the staff. It was only two +shillings a month, and it covered medical attendance and the use of a library +of worn novels; but as four shillings a month besides was stopped for washing, +Philip discovered that a quarter of his six shillings a week would never be +paid to him. +</p> + +<p> +Most of the men were eating thick slices of fat bacon between a roll of bread +cut in two. These sandwiches, the assistants’ usual supper, were supplied +by a small shop a few doors off at twopence each. The soldier rolled in; +silently, rapidly, took off his clothes and threw himself into bed. At ten +minutes past eleven the gas gave a big jump and five minutes later went out. +The soldier went to sleep, but the others crowded round the big window in their +pyjamas and night-shirts and, throwing remains of their sandwiches at the women +who passed in the street below, shouted to them facetious remarks. The house +opposite, six storeys high, was a workshop for Jewish tailors who left off work +at eleven; the rooms were brightly lit and there were no blinds to the windows. +The sweater’s daughter—the family consisted of father, mother, two +small boys, and a girl of twenty—went round the house to put out the +lights when work was over, and sometimes she allowed herself to be made love to +by one of the tailors. The shop assistants in Philip’s room got a lot of +amusement out of watching the manoeuvres of one man or another to stay behind, +and they made small bets on which would succeed. At midnight the people were +turned out of the Harrington Arms at the end of the street, and soon after they +all went to bed: Bell, who slept nearest the door, made his way across the room +by jumping from bed to bed, and even when he got to his own would not stop +talking. At last everything was silent but for the steady snoring of the +soldier, and Philip went to sleep. +</p> + +<p> +He was awaked at seven by the loud ringing of a bell, and by a quarter to eight +they were all dressed and hurrying downstairs in their stockinged feet to pick +out their boots. They laced them as they ran along to the shop in Oxford Street +for breakfast. If they were a minute later than eight they got none, nor, once +in, were they allowed out to get themselves anything to eat. Sometimes, if they +knew they could not get into the building in time, they stopped at the little +shop near their quarters and bought a couple of buns; but this cost money, and +most went without food till dinner. Philip ate some bread and butter, drank a +cup of tea, and at half past eight began his day’s work again. +</p> + +<p> +“First to the right. Second on the left, madam.” +</p> + +<p> +Soon he began to answer the questions quite mechanically. The work was +monotonous and very tiring. After a few days his feet hurt him so that he could +hardly stand: the thick soft carpets made them burn, and at night his socks +were painful to remove. It was a common complaint, and his fellow +‘floormen’ told him that socks and boots just rotted away from the +continual sweating. All the men in his room suffered in the same fashion, and +they relieved the pain by sleeping with their feet outside the bed-clothes. At +first Philip could not walk at all and was obliged to spend a good many of his +evenings in the sitting-room at Harrington Street with his feet in a pail of +cold water. His companion on these occasions was Bell, the lad in the +haberdashery, who stayed in often to arrange the stamps he collected. As he +fastened them with little pieces of stamp-paper he whistled monotonously. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CIV</h2> + +<p> +The social evenings took place on alternate Mondays. There was one at the +beginning of Philip’s second week at Lynn’s. He arranged to go with +one of the women in his department. +</p> + +<p> +“Meet ’em ’alf-way,” she said, “same as I +do.” +</p> + +<p> +This was Mrs. Hodges, a little woman of five-and-forty, with badly dyed hair; +she had a yellow face with a network of small red veins all over it, and yellow +whites to her pale blue eyes. She took a fancy to Philip and called him by his +Christian name before he had been in the shop a week. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve both known what it is to come down,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She told Philip that her real name was not Hodges, but she always referred to +“me ’usband Misterodges;” he was a barrister and he treated +her simply shocking, so she left him as she preferred to be independent like; +but she had known what it was to drive in her own carriage, dear—she +called everyone dear—and they always had late dinner at home. She used to +pick her teeth with the pin of an enormous silver brooch. It was in the form of +a whip and a hunting-crop crossed, with two spurs in the middle. Philip was ill +at ease in his new surroundings, and the girls in the shop called him +‘sidey.’ One addressed him as Phil, and he did not answer because +he had not the least idea that she was speaking to him; so she tossed her head, +saying he was a ‘stuck-up thing,’ and next time with ironical +emphasis called him Mister Carey. She was a Miss Jewell, and she was going to +marry a doctor. The other girls had never seen him, but they said he must be a +gentleman as he gave her such lovely presents. +</p> + +<p> +“Never you mind what they say, dear,” said Mrs. Hodges. +“I’ve ’ad to go through it same as you ’ave. They +don’t know any better, poor things. You take my word for it, +they’ll like you all right if you ’old your own same as I +’ave.” +</p> + +<p> +The social evening was held in the restaurant in the basement. The tables were +put on one side so that there might be room for dancing, and smaller ones were +set out for progressive whist. +</p> + +<p> +“The ’eads ’ave to get there early,” said Mrs. Hodges. +</p> + +<p> +She introduced him to Miss Bennett, who was the belle of Lynn’s. She was +the buyer in the ‘Petticoats,’ and when Philip entered was engaged +in conversation with the buyer in the ‘Gentlemen’s Hosiery;’ +Miss Bennett was a woman of massive proportions, with a very large red face +heavily powdered and a bust of imposing dimensions; her flaxen hair was +arranged with elaboration. She was overdressed, but not badly dressed, in black +with a high collar, and she wore black glace gloves, in which she played cards; +she had several heavy gold chains round her neck, bangles on her wrists, and +circular photograph pendants, one being of Queen Alexandra; she carried a black +satin bag and chewed Sen-sens. +</p> + +<p> +“Please to meet you, Mr. Carey,” she said. “This is your +first visit to our social evenings, ain’t it? I expect you feel a bit +shy, but there’s no cause to, I promise you that.” +</p> + +<p> +She did her best to make people feel at home. She slapped them on the shoulders +and laughed a great deal. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t I a pickle?” she cried, turning to Philip. “What +must you think of me? But I can’t ’elp meself.” +</p> + +<p> +Those who were going to take part in the social evening came in, the younger +members of the staff mostly, boys who had not girls of their own, and girls who +had not yet found anyone to walk with. Several of the young gentlemen wore +lounge suits with white evening ties and red silk handkerchiefs; they were +going to perform, and they had a busy, abstracted air; some were +self-confident, but others were nervous, and they watched their public with an +anxious eye. Presently a girl with a great deal of hair sat at the piano and +ran her hands noisily across the keyboard. When the audience had settled itself +she looked round and gave the name of her piece. +</p> + +<p> +“A Drive in Russia.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a round of clapping during which she deftly fixed bells to her +wrists. She smiled a little and immediately burst into energetic melody. There +was a great deal more clapping when she finished, and when this was over, as an +encore, she gave a piece which imitated the sea; there were little trills to +represent the lapping waves and thundering chords, with the loud pedal down, to +suggest a storm. After this a gentleman sang a song called Bid me Good-bye, and +as an encore obliged with Sing me to Sleep. The audience measured their +enthusiasm with a nice discrimination. Everyone was applauded till he gave an +encore, and so that there might be no jealousy no one was applauded more than +anyone else. Miss Bennett sailed up to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you play or sing, Mr. Carey,” she said archly. +“I can see it in your face.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you even recite?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no parlour tricks.” +</p> + +<p> +The buyer in the ‘gentleman’s hosiery’ was a well-known +reciter, and he was called upon loudly to perform by all the assistants in his +department. Needing no pressing, he gave a long poem of tragic character, in +which he rolled his eyes, put his hand on his chest, and acted as though he +were in great agony. The point, that he had eaten cucumber for supper, was +divulged in the last line and was greeted with laughter, a little forced +because everyone knew the poem well, but loud and long. Miss Bennett did not +sing, play, or recite. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, she ’as a little game of her own,” said Mrs. Hodges. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, don’t you begin chaffing me. The fact is I know quite a lot +about palmistry and second sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do tell my ’and, Miss Bennett,” cried the girls in her +department, eager to please her. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like telling ’ands, I don’t really. I’ve +told people such terrible things and they’ve all come true, it makes one +superstitious like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Miss Bennett, just for once.” +</p> + +<p> +A little crowd collected round her, and, amid screams of embarrassment, +giggles, blushings, and cries of dismay or admiration, she talked mysteriously +of fair and dark men, of money in a letter, and of journeys, till the sweat +stood in heavy beads on her painted face. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at me,” she said. “I’m all of a +perspiration.” +</p> + +<p> +Supper was at nine. There were cakes, buns, sandwiches, tea and coffee, all +free; but if you wanted mineral water you had to pay for it. Gallantry often +led young men to offer the ladies ginger beer, but common decency made them +refuse. Miss Bennett was very fond of ginger beer, and she drank two and +sometimes three bottles during the evening; but she insisted on paying for them +herself. The men liked her for that. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a rum old bird,” they said, “but mind you, +she’s not a bad sort, she’s not like what some are.” +</p> + +<p> +After supper progressive whist was played. This was very noisy, and there was a +great deal of laughing and shouting, as people moved from table to table. Miss +Bennett grew hotter and hotter. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at me,” she said. “I’m all of a +perspiration.” +</p> + +<p> +In due course one of the more dashing of the young men remarked that if they +wanted to dance they’d better begin. The girl who had played the +accompaniments sat at the piano and placed a decided foot on the loud pedal. +She played a dreamy waltz, marking the time with the bass, while with the right +hand she ‘tiddled’ in alternate octaves. By way of a change she +crossed her hands and played the air in the bass. +</p> + +<p> +“She does play well, doesn’t she?” Mrs. Hodges remarked to +Philip. “And what’s more she’s never ’ad a lesson in +’er life; it’s all ear.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Bennett liked dancing and poetry better than anything in the world. She +danced well, but very, very slowly, and an expression came into her eyes as +though her thoughts were far, far away. She talked breathlessly of the floor +and the heat and the supper. She said that the Portman Rooms had the best floor +in London and she always liked the dances there; they were very select, and she +couldn’t bear dancing with all sorts of men you didn’t know +anything about; why, you might be exposing yourself to you didn’t know +what all. Nearly all the people danced very well, and they enjoyed themselves. +Sweat poured down their faces, and the very high collars of the young men grew +limp. +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked on, and a greater depression seized him than he remembered to +have felt for a long time. He felt intolerably alone. He did not go, because he +was afraid to seem supercilious, and he talked with the girls and laughed, but +in his heart was unhappiness. Miss Bennett asked him if he had a girl. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, there’s plenty to choose from here. And they’re +very nice respectable girls, some of them. I expect you’ll have a girl +before you’ve been here long.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him very archly. +</p> + +<p> +“Meet ’em ’alf-way,” said Mrs. Hodges. +“That’s what I tell him.” +</p> + +<p> +It was nearly eleven o’clock, and the party broke up. Philip could not +get to sleep. Like the others he kept his aching feet outside the bed-clothes. +He tried with all his might not to think of the life he was leading. The +soldier was snoring quietly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CV</h2> + +<p> +The wages were paid once a month by the secretary. On pay-day each batch of +assistants, coming down from tea, went into the passage and joined the long +line of people waiting orderly like the audience in a queue outside a gallery +door. One by one they entered the office. The secretary sat at a desk with +wooden bowls of money in front of him, and he asked the employe’s name; +he referred to a book, quickly, after a suspicious glance at the assistant, +said aloud the sum due, and taking money out of the bowl counted it into his +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” he said. “Next.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” was the reply. +</p> + +<p> +The assistant passed on to the second secretary and before leaving the room +paid him four shillings for washing money, two shillings for the club, and any +fines that he might have incurred. With what he had left he went back into his +department and there waited till it was time to go. Most of the men in +Philip’s house were in debt with the woman who sold the sandwiches they +generally ate for supper. She was a funny old thing, very fat, with a broad, +red face, and black hair plastered neatly on each side of the forehead in the +fashion shown in early pictures of Queen Victoria. She always wore a little +black bonnet and a white apron; her sleeves were tucked up to the elbow; she +cut the sandwiches with large, dirty, greasy hands; and there was grease on her +bodice, grease on her apron, grease on her skirt. She was called Mrs. Fletcher, +but everyone addressed her as ‘Ma’; she was really fond of the shop +assistants, whom she called her boys; she never minded giving credit towards +the end of the month, and it was known that now and then she had lent someone +or other a few shillings when he was in straits. She was a good woman. When +they were leaving or when they came back from the holidays, the boys kissed her +fat red cheek; and more than one, dismissed and unable to find another job, had +got for nothing food to keep body and soul together. The boys were sensible of +her large heart and repaid her with genuine affection. There was a story they +liked to tell of a man who had done well for himself at Bradford, and had five +shops of his own, and had come back after fifteen years and visited Ma Fletcher +and given her a gold watch. +</p> + +<p> +Philip found himself with eighteen shillings left out of his month’s pay. +It was the first money he had ever earned in his life. It gave him none of the +pride which might have been expected, but merely a feeling of dismay. The +smallness of the sum emphasised the hopelessness of his position. He took +fifteen shillings to Mrs. Athelny to pay back part of what he owed her, but she +would not take more than half a sovereign. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you know, at that rate it’ll take me eight months to +settle up with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“As long as Athelny’s in work I can afford to wait, and who knows, +p’raps they’ll give you a rise.” +</p> + +<p> +Athelny kept on saying that he would speak to the manager about Philip, it was +absurd that no use should be made of his talents; but he did nothing, and +Philip soon came to the conclusion that the press-agent was not a person of so +much importance in the manager’s eyes as in his own. Occasionally he saw +Athelny in the shop. His flamboyance was extinguished; and in neat, +commonplace, shabby clothes he hurried, a subdued, unassuming little man, +through the departments as though anxious to escape notice. +</p> + +<p> +“When I think of how I’m wasted there,” he said at home, +“I’m almost tempted to give in my notice. There’s no scope +for a man like me. I’m stunted, I’m starved.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Athelny, quietly sewing, took no notice of his complaints. Her mouth +tightened a little. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very hard to get jobs in these times. It’s regular and +it’s safe; I expect you’ll stay there as long as you give +satisfaction.” +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that Athelny would. It was interesting to see the ascendency +which the uneducated woman, bound to him by no legal tie, had acquired over the +brilliant, unstable man. Mrs. Athelny treated Philip with motherly kindness now +that he was in a different position, and he was touched by her anxiety that he +should make a good meal. It was the solace of his life (and when he grew used +to it, the monotony of it was what chiefly appalled him) that he could go every +Sunday to that friendly house. It was a joy to sit in the stately Spanish +chairs and discuss all manner of things with Athelny. Though his condition +seemed so desperate he never left him to go back to Harrington Street without a +feeling of exultation. At first Philip, in order not to forget what he had +learned, tried to go on reading his medical books, but he found it useless; he +could not fix his attention on them after the exhausting work of the day; and +it seemed hopeless to continue working when he did not know in how long he +would be able to go back to the hospital. He dreamed constantly that he was in +the wards. The awakening was painful. The sensation of other people sleeping in +the room was inexpressibly irksome to him; he had been used to solitude, and to +be with others always, never to be by himself for an instant was at these +moments horrible to him. It was then that he found it most difficult to combat +his despair. He saw himself going on with that life, first to the right, second +on the left, madam, indefinitely; and having to be thankful if he was not sent +away: the men who had gone to the war would be coming home soon, the firm had +guaranteed to take them back, and this must mean that others would be sacked; +he would have to stir himself even to keep the wretched post he had. +</p> + +<p> +There was only one thing to free him and that was the death of his uncle. He +would get a few hundred pounds then, and on this he could finish his course at +the hospital. Philip began to wish with all his might for the old man’s +death. He reckoned out how long he could possibly live: he was well over +seventy, Philip did not know his exact age, but he must be at least +seventy-five; he suffered from chronic bronchitis and every winter had a bad +cough. Though he knew them by heart Philip read over and over again the details +in his text-book of medicine of chronic bronchitis in the old. A severe winter +might be too much for the old man. With all his heart Philip longed for cold +and rain. He thought of it constantly, so that it became a monomania. Uncle +William was affected by the great heat too, and in August they had three weeks +of sweltering weather. Philip imagined to himself that one day perhaps a +telegram would come saying that the Vicar had died suddenly, and he pictured to +himself his unutterable relief. As he stood at the top of the stairs and +directed people to the departments they wanted, he occupied his mind with +thinking incessantly what he would do with the money. He did not know how much +it would be, perhaps no more than five hundred pounds, but even that would be +enough. He would leave the shop at once, he would not bother to give notice, he +would pack his box and go without saying a word to anybody; and then he would +return to the hospital. That was the first thing. Would he have forgotten much? +In six months he could get it all back, and then he would take his three +examinations as soon as he could, midwifery first, then medicine and surgery. +The awful fear seized him that his uncle, notwithstanding his promises, might +leave everything he had to the parish or the church. The thought made Philip +sick. He could not be so cruel. But if that happened Philip was quite +determined what to do, he would not go on in that way indefinitely; his life +was only tolerable because he could look forward to something better. If he had +no hope he would have no fear. The only brave thing to do then would be to +commit suicide, and, thinking this over too, Philip decided minutely what +painless drug he would take and how he would get hold of it. It encouraged him +to think that, if things became unendurable, he had at all events a way out. +</p> + +<p> +“Second to the right, madam, and down the stairs. First on the left and +straight through. Mr. Philips, forward please.” +</p> + +<p> +Once a month, for a week, Philip was ‘on duty.’ He had to go to the +department at seven in the morning and keep an eye on the sweepers. When they +finished he had to take the sheets off the cases and the models. Then, in the +evening when the assistants left, he had to put back the sheets on the models +and the cases and ‘gang’ the sweepers again. It was a dusty, dirty +job. He was not allowed to read or write or smoke, but just had to walk about, +and the time hung heavily on his hands. When he went off at half past nine he +had supper given him, and this was the only consolation; for tea at five +o’clock had left him with a healthy appetite, and the bread and cheese, +the abundant cocoa which the firm provided, were welcome. +</p> + +<p> +One day when Philip had been at Lynn’s for three months, Mr. Sampson, the +buyer, came into the department, fuming with anger. The manager, happening to +notice the costume window as he came in, had sent for the buyer and made +satirical remarks upon the colour scheme. Forced to submit in silence to his +superior’s sarcasm, Mr. Sampson took it out of the assistants; and he +rated the wretched fellow whose duty it was to dress the window. +</p> + +<p> +“If you want a thing well done you must do it yourself,” Mr. +Sampson stormed. “I’ve always said it and I always shall. One +can’t leave anything to you chaps. Intelligent you call yourselves, do +you? Intelligent!” +</p> + +<p> +He threw the word at the assistants as though it were the bitterest term of +reproach. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know that if you put an electric blue in the window +it’ll kill all the other blues?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked round the department ferociously, and his eye fell upon Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll dress the window next Friday, Carey. Let’s see what +you can make of it.” +</p> + +<p> +He went into his office, muttering angrily. Philip’s heart sank. When +Friday morning came he went into the window with a sickening sense of shame. +His cheeks were burning. It was horrible to display himself to the passers-by, +and though he told himself it was foolish to give way to such a feeling he +turned his back to the street. There was not much chance that any of the +students at the hospital would pass along Oxford Street at that hour, and he +knew hardly anyone else in London; but as Philip worked, with a huge lump in +his throat, he fancied that on turning round he would catch the eye of some man +he knew. He made all the haste he could. By the simple observation that all +reds went together, and by spacing the costumes more than was usual, Philip got +a very good effect; and when the buyer went into the street to look at the +result he was obviously pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew I shouldn’t go far wrong in putting you on the window. The +fact is, you and me are gentlemen, mind you I wouldn’t say this in the +department, but you and me are gentlemen, and that always tells. It’s no +good your telling me it doesn’t tell, because I know it does tell.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was put on the job regularly, but he could not accustom himself to the +publicity; and he dreaded Friday morning, on which the window was dressed, with +a terror that made him awake at five o’clock and lie sleepless with +sickness in his heart. The girls in the department noticed his shamefaced way, +and they very soon discovered his trick of standing with his back to the +street. They laughed at him and called him ‘sidey.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’re afraid your aunt’ll come along and cut you +out of her will.” +</p> + +<p> +On the whole he got on well enough with the girls. They thought him a little +queer; but his club-foot seemed to excuse his not being like the rest, and they +found in due course that he was good-natured. He never minded helping anyone, +and he was polite and even tempered. +</p> + +<p> +“You can see he’s a gentleman,” they said. +</p> + +<p> +“Very reserved, isn’t he?” said one young woman, to whose +passionate enthusiasm for the theatre he had listened unmoved. +</p> + +<p> +Most of them had ‘fellers,’ and those who hadn’t said they +had rather than have it supposed that no one had an inclination for them. One +or two showed signs of being willing to start a flirtation with Philip, and he +watched their manoeuvres with grave amusement. He had had enough of love-making +for some time; and he was nearly always tired and often hungry. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CVI</h2> + +<p> +Philip avoided the places he had known in happier times. The little gatherings +at the tavern in Beak Street were broken up: Macalister, having let down his +friends, no longer went there, and Hayward was at the Cape. Only Lawson +remained; and Philip, feeling that now the painter and he had nothing in +common, did not wish to see him; but one Saturday afternoon, after dinner, +having changed his clothes he walked down Regent Street to go to the free +library in St. Martin’s Lane, meaning to spend the afternoon there, and +suddenly found himself face to face with him. His first instinct was to pass on +without a word, but Lawson did not give him the opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +“Where on earth have you been all this time?” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“I?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I wrote you and asked you to come to the studio for a beano and you +never even answered.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t get your letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I know. I went to the hospital to ask for you, and I saw my letter +in the rack. Have you chucked the Medical?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip hesitated for a moment. He was ashamed to tell the truth, but the shame +he felt angered him, and he forced himself to speak. He could not help +reddening. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I lost the little money I had. I couldn’t afford to go on +with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’m awfully sorry. What are you doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a shop-walker.” +</p> + +<p> +The words choked Philip, but he was determined not to shirk the truth. He kept +his eyes on Lawson and saw his embarrassment. Philip smiled savagely. +</p> + +<p> +“If you went into Lynn and Sedley, and made your way into the ‘made +robes’ department, you would see me in a frock coat, walking about with a +degage air and directing ladies who want to buy petticoats or stockings. First +to the right, madam, and second on the left.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson, seeing that Philip was making a jest of it, laughed awkwardly. He did +not know what to say. The picture that Philip called up horrified him, but he +was afraid to show his sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a bit of a change for you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +His words seemed absurd to him, and immediately he wished he had not said them. +Philip flushed darkly. +</p> + +<p> +“A bit,” he said. “By the way, I owe you five bob.” +</p> + +<p> +He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some silver. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’d forgotten all about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, take it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson received the money silently. They stood in the middle of the pavement, +and people jostled them as they passed. There was a sardonic twinkle in +Philip’s eyes, which made the painter intensely uncomfortable, and he +could not tell that Philip’s heart was heavy with despair. Lawson wanted +dreadfully to do something, but he did not know what to do. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, won’t you come to the studio and have a talk?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing to talk about.” +</p> + +<p> +He saw the pain come into Lawson’s eyes, he could not help it, he was +sorry, but he had to think of himself; he could not bear the thought of +discussing his situation, he could endure it only by determining resolutely not +to think about it. He was afraid of his weakness if once he began to open his +heart. Moreover, he took irresistible dislikes to the places where he had been +miserable: he remembered the humiliation he had endured when he had waited in +that studio, ravenous with hunger, for Lawson to offer him a meal, and the last +occasion when he had taken the five shillings off him. He hated the sight of +Lawson, because he recalled those days of utter abasement. +</p> + +<p> +“Then look here, come and dine with me one night. Choose your own +evening.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was touched with the painter’s kindness. All sorts of people were +strangely kind to him, he thought. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s awfully good of you, old man, but I’d rather +not.” He held out his hand. “Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson, troubled by a behaviour which seemed inexplicable, took his hand, and +Philip quickly limped away. His heart was heavy; and, as was usual with him, he +began to reproach himself for what he had done: he did not know what madness of +pride had made him refuse the offered friendship. But he heard someone running +behind him and presently Lawson’s voice calling him; he stopped and +suddenly the feeling of hostility got the better of him; he presented to Lawson +a cold, set face. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you heard about Hayward, didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know he went to the Cape.” +</p> + +<p> +“He died, you know, soon after landing.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment Philip did not answer. He could hardly believe his ears. +</p> + +<p> +“How?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, enteric. Hard luck, wasn’t it? I thought you mightn’t +know. Gave me a bit of a turn when I heard it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawson nodded quickly and walked away. Philip felt a shiver pass through his +heart. He had never before lost a friend of his own age, for the death of +Cronshaw, a man so much older than himself, had seemed to come in the normal +course of things. The news gave him a peculiar shock. It reminded him of his +own mortality, for like everyone else Philip, knowing perfectly that all men +must die, had no intimate feeling that the same must apply to himself; and +Hayward’s death, though he had long ceased to have any warm feeling for +him, affected him deeply. He remembered on a sudden all the good talks they had +had, and it pained him to think that they would never talk with one another +again; he remembered their first meeting and the pleasant months they had spent +together in Heidelberg. Philip’s heart sank as he thought of the lost +years. He walked on mechanically, not noticing where he went, and realised +suddenly, with a movement of irritation, that instead of turning down the +Haymarket he had sauntered along Shaftesbury Avenue. It bored him to retrace +his steps; and besides, with that news, he did not want to read, he wanted to +sit alone and think. He made up his mind to go to the British Museum. Solitude +was now his only luxury. Since he had been at Lynn’s he had often gone +there and sat in front of the groups from the Parthenon; and, not deliberately +thinking, had allowed their divine masses to rest his troubled soul. But this +afternoon they had nothing to say to him, and after a few minutes, impatiently, +he wandered out of the room. There were too many people, provincials with +foolish faces, foreigners poring over guide-books; their hideousness besmirched +the everlasting masterpieces, their restlessness troubled the god’s +immortal repose. He went into another room and here there was hardly anyone. +Philip sat down wearily. His nerves were on edge. He could not get the people +out of his mind. Sometimes at Lynn’s they affected him in the same way, +and he looked at them file past him with horror; they were so ugly and there +was such meanness in their faces, it was terrifying; their features were +distorted with paltry desires, and you felt they were strange to any ideas of +beauty. They had furtive eyes and weak chins. There was no wickedness in them, +but only pettiness and vulgarity. Their humour was a low facetiousness. +Sometimes he found himself looking at them to see what animal they resembled +(he tried not to, for it quickly became an obsession,) and he saw in them all +the sheep or the horse or the fox or the goat. Human beings filled him with +disgust. +</p> + +<p> +But presently the influence of the place descended upon him. He felt quieter. +He began to look absently at the tombstones with which the room was lined. They +were the work of Athenian stone masons of the fourth and fifth centuries before +Christ, and they were very simple, work of no great talent but with the +exquisite spirit of Athens upon them; time had mellowed the marble to the +colour of honey, so that unconsciously one thought of the bees of Hymettus, and +softened their outlines. Some represented a nude figure, seated on a bench, +some the departure of the dead from those who loved him, and some the dead +clasping hands with one who remained behind. On all was the tragic word +farewell; that and nothing more. Their simplicity was infinitely touching. +Friend parted from friend, the son from his mother, and the restraint made the +survivor’s grief more poignant. It was so long, long ago, and century +upon century had passed over that unhappiness; for two thousand years those who +wept had been dust as those they wept for. Yet the woe was alive still, and it +filled Philip’s heart so that he felt compassion spring up in it, and he +said: +</p> + +<p> +“Poor things, poor things.” +</p> + +<p> +And it came to him that the gaping sight-seers and the fat strangers with their +guide-books, and all those mean, common people who thronged the shop, with +their trivial desires and vulgar cares, were mortal and must die. They too +loved and must part from those they loved, the son from his mother, the wife +from her husband; and perhaps it was more tragic because their lives were ugly +and sordid, and they knew nothing that gave beauty to the world. There was one +stone which was very beautiful, a bas relief of two young men holding each +other’s hand; and the reticence of line, the simplicity, made one like to +think that the sculptor here had been touched with a genuine emotion. It was an +exquisite memorial to that than which the world offers but one thing more +precious, to a friendship; and as Philip looked at it, he felt the tears come +to his eyes. He thought of Hayward and his eager admiration for him when first +they met, and how disillusion had come and then indifference, till nothing held +them together but habit and old memories. It was one of the queer things of +life that you saw a person every day for months and were so intimate with him +that you could not imagine existence without him; then separation came, and +everything went on in the same way, and the companion who had seemed essential +proved unnecessary. Your life proceeded and you did not even miss him. Philip +thought of those early days in Heidelberg when Hayward, capable of great +things, had been full of enthusiasm for the future, and how, little by little, +achieving nothing, he had resigned himself to failure. Now he was dead. His +death had been as futile as his life. He died ingloriously, of a stupid +disease, failing once more, even at the end, to accomplish anything. It was +just the same now as if he had never lived. +</p> + +<p> +Philip asked himself desperately what was the use of living at all. It all +seemed inane. It was the same with Cronshaw: it was quite unimportant that he +had lived; he was dead and forgotten, his book of poems sold in remainder by +second-hand booksellers; his life seemed to have served nothing except to give +a pushing journalist occasion to write an article in a review. And Philip cried +out in his soul: +</p> + +<p> +“What is the use of it?” +</p> + +<p> +The effort was so incommensurate with the result. The bright hopes of youth had +to be paid for at such a bitter price of disillusionment. Pain and disease and +unhappiness weighed down the scale so heavily. What did it all mean? He thought +of his own life, the high hopes with which he had entered upon it, the +limitations which his body forced upon him, his friendlessness, and the lack of +affection which had surrounded his youth. He did not know that he had ever done +anything but what seemed best to do, and what a cropper he had come! Other men, +with no more advantages than he, succeeded, and others again, with many more, +failed. It seemed pure chance. The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the +unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore. +</p> + +<p> +Thinking of Cronshaw, Philip remembered the Persian rug which he had given him, +telling him that it offered an answer to his question upon the meaning of life; +and suddenly the answer occurred to him: he chuckled: now that he had it, it +was like one of the puzzles which you worry over till you are shown the +solution and then cannot imagine how it could ever have escaped you. The answer +was obvious. Life had no meaning. On the earth, satellite of a star speeding +through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which +were part of the planet’s history; and as there had been a beginning of +life upon it so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an +end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the +climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment. Philip +remembered the story of the Eastern King who, desiring to know the history of +man, was brought by a sage five hundred volumes; busy with affairs of state, he +bade him go and condense it; in twenty years the sage returned and his history +now was in no more than fifty volumes, but the King, too old then to read so +many ponderous tomes, bade him go and shorten it once more; twenty years passed +again and the sage, old and gray, brought a single book in which was the +knowledge the King had sought; but the King lay on his death-bed, and he had no +time to read even that; and then the sage gave him the history of man in a +single line; it was this: he was born, he suffered, and he died. There was no +meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he +was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was +insignificant and death without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted +in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his +shoulders: it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken +from him; and for the first time he was utterly free. His insignificance was +turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which +had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed +of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was +unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate +creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the +surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos +the secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over one another in +Philip’s eager fancy, and he took long breaths of joyous satisfaction. He +felt inclined to leap and sing. He had not been so happy for months. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, life,” he cried in his heart, “Oh life, where is thy +sting?” +</p> + +<p> +For the same uprush of fancy which had shown him with all the force of +mathematical demonstration that life had no meaning, brought with it another +idea; and that was why Cronshaw, he imagined, had given him the Persian rug. As +the weaver elaborated his pattern for no end but the pleasure of his aesthetic +sense, so might a man live his life, or if one was forced to believe that his +actions were outside his choosing, so might a man look at his life, that it +made a pattern. There was as little need to do this as there was use. It was +merely something he did for his own pleasure. Out of the manifold events of his +life, his deeds, his feelings, his thoughts, he might make a design, regular, +elaborate, complicated, or beautiful; and though it might be no more than an +illusion that he had the power of selection, though it might be no more than a +fantastic legerdemain in which appearances were interwoven with moonbeams, that +did not matter: it seemed, and so to him it was. In the vast warp of life (a +river arising from no spring and flowing endlessly to no sea), with the +background to his fancies that there was no meaning and that nothing was +important, a man might get a personal satisfaction in selecting the various +strands that worked out the pattern. There was one pattern, the most obvious, +perfect, and beautiful, in which a man was born, grew to manhood, married, +produced children, toiled for his bread, and died; but there were others, +intricate and wonderful, in which happiness did not enter and in which success +was not attempted; and in them might be discovered a more troubling grace. Some +lives, and Hayward’s was among them, the blind indifference of chance cut +off while the design was still imperfect; and then the solace was comfortable +that it did not matter; other lives, such as Cronshaw’s, offered a +pattern which was difficult to follow, the point of view had to be shifted and +old standards had to be altered before one could understand that such a life +was its own justification. Philip thought that in throwing over the desire for +happiness he was casting aside the last of his illusions. His life had seemed +horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather +strength as he realised that it might be measured by something else. Happiness +mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other +details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an +instant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they +could not affect him again as they had done before. Whatever happened to him +now would be one more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when +the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It would be a work of +art, and it would be none the less beautiful because he alone knew of its +existence, and with his death it would at once cease to be. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was happy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CVII</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Sampson, the buyer, took a fancy to Philip. Mr. Sampson was very dashing, +and the girls in his department said they would not be surprised if he married +one of the rich customers. He lived out of town and often impressed the +assistants by putting on his evening clothes in the office. Sometimes he would +be seen by those on sweeping duty coming in next morning still dressed, and +they would wink gravely to one another while he went into his office and +changed into a frock coat. On these occasions, having slipped out for a hurried +breakfast, he also would wink at Philip as he walked up the stairs on his way +back and rub his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“What a night! What a night!” he said. “My word!” +</p> + +<p> +He told Philip that he was the only gentleman there, and he and Philip were the +only fellows who knew what life was. Having said this, he changed his manner +suddenly, called Philip Mr. Carey instead of old boy, assumed the importance +due to his position as buyer, and put Philip back into his place of +shop-walker. +</p> + +<p> +Lynn and Sedley received fashion papers from Paris once a week and adapted the +costumes illustrated in them to the needs of their customers. Their clientele +was peculiar. The most substantial part consisted of women from the smaller +manufacturing towns, who were too elegant to have their frocks made locally and +not sufficiently acquainted with London to discover good dressmakers within +their means. Beside these, incongruously, was a large number of music-hall +artistes. This was a connection that Mr. Sampson had worked up for himself and +took great pride in. They had begun by getting their stage-costumes at +Lynn’s, and he had induced many of them to get their other clothes there +as well. +</p> + +<p> +“As good as Paquin and half the price,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He had a persuasive, hail-fellow well-met air with him which appealed to +customers of this sort, and they said to one another: +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good of throwing money away when you can get a coat and +skirt at Lynn’s that nobody knows don’t come from Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Sampson was very proud of his friendship with the popular favourites whose +frocks he made, and when he went out to dinner at two o’clock on Sunday +with Miss Victoria Virgo—“she was wearing that powder blue we made +her and I lay she didn’t let on it come from us, I ’ad to tell her +meself that if I ’adn’t designed it with my own ’ands +I’d have said it must come from Paquin”—at her beautiful +house in Tulse Hill, he regaled the department next day with abundant details. +Philip had never paid much attention to women’s clothes, but in course of +time he began, a little amused at himself, to take a technical interest in +them. He had an eye for colour which was more highly trained than that of +anyone in the department, and he had kept from his student days in Paris some +knowledge of line. Mr. Sampson, an ignorant man conscious of his incompetence, +but with a shrewdness that enabled him to combine other people’s +suggestions, constantly asked the opinion of the assistants in his department +in making up new designs; and he had the quickness to see that Philip’s +criticisms were valuable. But he was very jealous, and would never allow that +he took anyone’s advice. When he had altered some drawing in accordance +with Philip’s suggestion, he always finished up by saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it comes round to my own idea in the end.” +</p> + +<p> +One day, when Philip had been at the shop for five months, Miss Alice Antonia, +the well-known serio-comic, came in and asked to see Mr. Sampson. She was a +large woman, with flaxen hair, and a boldly painted face, a metallic voice, and +the breezy manner of a comedienne accustomed to be on friendly terms with the +gallery boys of provincial music-halls. She had a new song and wished Mr. +Sampson to design a costume for her. +</p> + +<p> +“I want something striking,” she said. “I don’t want +any old thing you know. I want something different from what anybody else +has.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Sampson, bland and familiar, said he was quite certain they could get her +the very thing she required. He showed her sketches. +</p> + +<p> +“I know there’s nothing here that would do, but I just want to show +you the kind of thing I would suggest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, that’s not the sort of thing at all,” she said, as +she glanced at them impatiently. “What I want is something that’ll +just hit ’em in the jaw and make their front teeth rattle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I quite understand, Miss Antonia,” said the buyer, with a +bland smile, but his eyes grew blank and stupid. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect I shall ’ave to pop over to Paris for it in the +end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I think we can give you satisfaction, Miss Antonia. What you can get +in Paris you can get here.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had swept out of the department Mr. Sampson, a little worried, +discussed the matter with Mrs. Hodges. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a caution and no mistake,” said Mrs. Hodges. +</p> + +<p> +“Alice, where art thou?” remarked the buyer, irritably, and thought +he had scored a point against her. +</p> + +<p> +His ideas of music-hall costumes had never gone beyond short skirts, a swirl of +lace, and glittering sequins; but Miss Antonia had expressed herself on that +subject in no uncertain terms. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my aunt!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +And the invocation was uttered in such a tone as to indicate a rooted antipathy +to anything so commonplace, even if she had not added that sequins gave her the +sick. Mr. Sampson ‘got out’ one or two ideas, but Mrs. Hodges told +him frankly she did not think they would do. It was she who gave Philip the +suggestion: +</p> + +<p> +“Can you draw, Phil? Why don’t you try your ‘and and see what +you can do?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip bought a cheap box of water colours, and in the evening while Bell, the +noisy lad of sixteen, whistling three notes, busied himself with his stamps, he +made one or two sketches. He remembered some of the costumes he had seen in +Paris, and he adapted one of them, getting his effect from a combination of +violent, unusual colours. The result amused him and next morning he showed it +to Mrs. Hodges. She was somewhat astonished, but took it at once to the buyer. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s unusual,” he said, “there’s no denying +that.” +</p> + +<p> +It puzzled him, and at the same time his trained eye saw that it would make up +admirably. To save his face he began making suggestions for altering it, but +Mrs. Hodges, with more sense, advised him to show it to Miss Antonia as it was. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s neck or nothing with her, and she may take a fancy to +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a good deal more nothing than neck,” said Mr. Sampson, +looking at the decolletage. “He can draw, can’t he? Fancy ’im +keeping it dark all this time.” +</p> + +<p> +When Miss Antonia was announced, the buyer placed the design on the table in +such a position that it must catch her eye the moment she was shown into his +office. She pounced on it at once. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” she said. “Why can’t I ’ave +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just an idea we got out for you,” said Mr. Sampson +casually. “D’you like it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I like it!” she said. “Give me ’alf a pint with a +little drop of gin in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you see, you don’t have to go to Paris. You’ve only got +to say what you want and there you are.” +</p> + +<p> +The work was put in hand at once, and Philip felt quite a thrill of +satisfaction when he saw the costume completed. The buyer and Mrs. Hodges took +all the credit of it; but he did not care, and when he went with them to the +Tivoli to see Miss Antonia wear it for the first time he was filled with +elation. In answer to her questions he at last told Mrs. Hodges how he had +learnt to draw—fearing that the people he lived with would think he +wanted to put on airs, he had always taken the greatest care to say nothing +about his past occupations—and she repeated the information to Mr. +Sampson. The buyer said nothing to him on the subject, but began to treat him a +little more deferentially and presently gave him designs to do for two of the +country customers. They met with satisfaction. Then he began to speak to his +clients of a “clever young feller, Paris art-student, you know,” +who worked for him; and soon Philip, ensconced behind a screen, in his shirt +sleeves, was drawing from morning till night. Sometimes he was so busy that he +had to dine at three with the ‘stragglers.’ He liked it, because +there were few of them and they were all too tired to talk; the food also was +better, for it consisted of what was left over from the buyers’ table. +Philip’s rise from shop-walker to designer of costumes had a great effect +on the department. He realised that he was an object of envy. Harris, the +assistant with the queer-shaped head, who was the first person he had known at +the shop and had attached himself to Philip, could not conceal his bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +“Some people ’ave all the luck,” he said. “You’ll +be a buyer yourself one of these days, and we shall all be calling you +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +He told Philip that he should demand higher wages, for notwithstanding the +difficult work he was now engaged in, he received no more than the six +shillings a week with which he started. But it was a ticklish matter to ask for +a rise. The manager had a sardonic way of dealing with such applicants. +</p> + +<p> +“Think you’re worth more, do you? How much d’you think +you’re worth, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +The assistant, with his heart in his mouth, would suggest that he thought he +ought to have another two shillings a week. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well, if you think you’re worth it. You can ’ave +it.” Then he paused and sometimes, with a steely eye, added: “And +you can ’ave your notice too.” +</p> + +<p> +It was no use then to withdraw your request, you had to go. The manager’s +idea was that assistants who were dissatisfied did not work properly, and if +they were not worth a rise it was better to sack them at once. The result was +that they never asked for one unless they were prepared to leave. Philip +hesitated. He was a little suspicious of the men in his room who told him that +the buyer could not do without him. They were decent fellows, but their sense +of humour was primitive, and it would have seemed funny to them if they had +persuaded Philip to ask for more wages and he were sacked. He could not forget +the mortification he had suffered in looking for work, he did not wish to +expose himself to that again, and he knew there was small chance of his getting +elsewhere a post as designer: there were hundreds of people about who could +draw as well as he. But he wanted money very badly; his clothes were worn out, +and the heavy carpets rotted his socks and boots; he had almost persuaded +himself to take the venturesome step when one morning, passing up from +breakfast in the basement through the passage that led to the manager’s +office, he saw a queue of men waiting in answer to an advertisement. There were +about a hundred of them, and whichever was engaged would be offered his keep +and the same six shillings a week that Philip had. He saw some of them cast +envious glances at him because he had employment. It made him shudder. He dared +not risk it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CVIII</h2> + +<p> +The winter passed. Now and then Philip went to the hospital, slinking in when +it was late and there was little chance of meeting anyone he knew, to see +whether there were letters for him. At Easter he received one from his uncle. +He was surprised to hear from him, for the Vicar of Blackstable had never +written him more than half a dozen letters in his whole life, and they were on +business matters. +</p> + +<p> +Dear Philip, +</p> + +<p> +If you are thinking of taking a holiday soon and care to come down here I shall +be pleased to see you. I was very ill with my bronchitis in the winter and +Doctor Wigram never expected me to pull through. I have a wonderful +constitution and I made, thank God, a marvellous recovery.<br/> +Yours affectionately,<br/> +William Carey. +</p> + +<p> +The letter made Philip angry. How did his uncle think he was living? He did not +even trouble to inquire. He might have starved for all the old man cared. But +as he walked home something struck him; he stopped under a lamp-post and read +the letter again; the handwriting had no longer the business-like firmness +which had characterised it; it was larger and wavering: perhaps the illness had +shaken him more than he was willing to confess, and he sought in that formal +note to express a yearning to see the only relation he had in the world. Philip +wrote back that he could come down to Blackstable for a fortnight in July. The +invitation was convenient, for he had not known what to do, with his brief +holiday. The Athelnys went hopping in September, but he could not then be +spared, since during that month the autumn models were prepared. The rule of +Lynn’s was that everyone must take a fortnight whether he wanted it or +not; and during that time, if he had nowhere to go, the assistant might sleep +in his room, but he was not allowed food. A number had no friends within +reasonable distance of London, and to these the holiday was an awkward interval +when they had to provide food out of their small wages and, with the whole day +on their hands, had nothing to spend. Philip had not been out of London since +his visit to Brighton with Mildred, now two years before, and he longed for +fresh air and the silence of the sea. He thought of it with such a passionate +desire, all through May and June, that, when at length the time came for him to +go, he was listless. +</p> + +<p> +On his last evening, when he talked with the buyer of one or two jobs he had to +leave over, Mr. Sampson suddenly said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“What wages have you been getting?” +</p> + +<p> +“Six shillings.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it’s enough. I’ll see that you’re +put up to twelve when you come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much,” smiled Philip. “I’m beginning to +want some new clothes badly.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you stick to your work and don’t go larking about with the +girls like what some of them do, I’ll look after you, Carey. Mind you, +you’ve got a lot to learn, but you’re promising, I’ll say +that for you, you’re promising, and I’ll see that you get a pound a +week as soon as you deserve it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip wondered how long he would have to wait for that. Two years? +</p> + +<p> +He was startled at the change in his uncle. When last he had seen him he was a +stout man, who held himself upright, clean-shaven, with a round, sensual face; +but he had fallen in strangely, his skin was yellow; there were great bags +under the eyes, and he was bent and old. He had grown a beard during his last +illness, and he walked very slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not at my best today,” he said when Philip, having just +arrived, was sitting with him in the dining-room. “The heat upsets +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip, asking after the affairs of the parish, looked at him and wondered how +much longer he could last. A hot summer would finish him; Philip noticed how +thin his hands were; they trembled. It meant so much to Philip. If he died that +summer he could go back to the hospital at the beginning of the winter session; +his heart leaped at the thought of returning no more to Lynn’s. At dinner +the Vicar sat humped up on his chair, and the housekeeper who had been with him +since his wife’s death said: +</p> + +<p> +“Shall Mr. Philip carve, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +The old man, who had been about to do so from disinclination to confess his +weakness, seemed glad at the first suggestion to relinquish the attempt. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a very good appetite,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I always eat well. But I’m thinner than when you were here +last. I’m glad to be thinner, I didn’t like being so fat. Dr. +Wigram thinks I’m all the better for being thinner than I was.” +</p> + +<p> +When dinner was over the housekeeper brought him some medicine. +</p> + +<p> +“Show the prescription to Master Philip,” he said. +“He’s a doctor too. I’d like him to see that he thinks +it’s all right. I told Dr. Wigram that now you’re studying to be a +doctor he ought to make a reduction in his charges. It’s dreadful the +bills I’ve had to pay. He came every day for two months, and he charges +five shillings a visit. It’s a lot of money, isn’t it? He comes +twice a week still. I’m going to tell him he needn’t come any more. +I’ll send for him if I want him.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Philip eagerly while he read the prescriptions. They were +narcotics. There were two of them, and one was a medicine which the Vicar +explained he was to use only if his neuritis grew unendurable. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very careful,” he said. “I don’t want to get +into the opium habit.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not mention his nephew’s affairs. Philip fancied that it was by +way of precaution, in case he asked for money, that his uncle kept dwelling on +the financial calls upon him. He had spent so much on the doctor and so much +more on the chemist, while he was ill they had had to have a fire every day in +his bed-room, and now on Sunday he needed a carriage to go to church in the +evening as well as in the morning. Philip felt angrily inclined to say he need +not be afraid, he was not going to borrow from him, but he held his tongue. It +seemed to him that everything had left the old man now but two things, pleasure +in his food and a grasping desire for money. It was a hideous old age. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon Dr. Wigram came, and after the visit Philip walked with him to +the garden gate. +</p> + +<p> +“How d’you think he is?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Wigram was more anxious not to do wrong than to do right, and he never +hazarded a definite opinion if he could help it. He had practised at +Blackstable for five-and-thirty years. He had the reputation of being very +safe, and many of his patients thought it much better that a doctor should be +safe than clever. There was a new man at Blackstable—he had been settled +there for ten years, but they still looked upon him as an interloper—and +he was said to be very clever; but he had not much practice among the better +people, because no one really knew anything about him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s as well as can be expected,” said Dr. Wigram in +answer to Philip’s inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he got anything seriously the matter with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Philip, your uncle is no longer a young man,” said the +doctor with a cautious little smile, which suggested that after all the Vicar +of Blackstable was not an old man either. +</p> + +<p> +“He seems to think his heart’s in a bad way.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not satisfied with his heart,” hazarded the doctor, +“I think he should be careful, very careful.” +</p> + +<p> +On the tip of Philip’s tongue was the question: how much longer can he +live? He was afraid it would shock. In these matters a periphrase was demanded +by the decorum of life, but, as he asked another question instead, it flashed +through him that the doctor must be accustomed to the impatience of a sick +man’s relatives. He must see through their sympathetic expressions. +Philip, with a faint smile at his own hypocrisy, cast down his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he’s in no immediate danger?” +</p> + +<p> +This was the kind of question the doctor hated. If you said a patient +couldn’t live another month the family prepared itself for a bereavement, +and if then the patient lived on they visited the medical attendant with the +resentment they felt at having tormented themselves before it was necessary. On +the other hand, if you said the patient might live a year and he died in a week +the family said you did not know your business. They thought of all the +affection they would have lavished on the defunct if they had known the end was +so near. Dr. Wigram made the gesture of washing his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think there’s any grave risk so long as +he—remains as he is,” he ventured at last. “But on the other +hand, we mustn’t forget that he’s no longer a young man, and well, +the machine is wearing out. If he gets over the hot weather I don’t see +why he shouldn’t get on very comfortably till the winter, and then if the +winter does not bother him too much, well, I don’t see why anything +should happen.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip went back to the dining-room where his uncle was sitting. With his +skull-cap and a crochet shawl over his shoulders he looked grotesque. His eyes +had been fixed on the door, and they rested on Philip’s face as he +entered. Philip saw that his uncle had been waiting anxiously for his return. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what did he say about me?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip understood suddenly that the old man was frightened of dying. It made +Philip a little ashamed, so that he looked away involuntarily. He was always +embarrassed by the weakness of human nature. +</p> + +<p> +“He says he thinks you’re much better,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +A gleam of delight came into his uncle’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a wonderful constitution,” he said. “What +else did he say?” he added suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +Philip smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“He said that if you take care of yourself there’s no reason why +you shouldn’t live to be a hundred.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that I can expect to do that, but I don’t see +why I shouldn’t see eighty. My mother lived till she was +eighty-four.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little table by the side of Mr. Carey’s chair, and on it were +a Bible and the large volume of the Common Prayer from which for so many years +he had been accustomed to read to his household. He stretched out now his +shaking hand and took his Bible. +</p> + +<p> +“Those old patriarchs lived to a jolly good old age, didn’t +they?” he said, with a queer little laugh in which Philip read a sort of +timid appeal. +</p> + +<p> +The old man clung to life. Yet he believed implicitly all that his religion +taught him. He had no doubt in the immortality of the soul, and he felt that he +had conducted himself well enough, according to his capacities, to make it very +likely that he would go to heaven. In his long career to how many dying persons +must he have administered the consolations of religion! Perhaps he was like the +doctor who could get no benefit from his own prescriptions. Philip was puzzled +and shocked by that eager cleaving to the earth. He wondered what nameless +horror was at the back of the old man’s mind. He would have liked to +probe into his soul so that he might see in its nakedness the dreadful dismay +of the unknown which he suspected. +</p> + +<p> +The fortnight passed quickly and Philip returned to London. He passed a +sweltering August behind his screen in the costumes department, drawing in his +shirt sleeves. The assistants in relays went for their holidays. In the evening +Philip generally went into Hyde Park and listened to the band. Growing more +accustomed to his work it tired him less, and his mind, recovering from its +long stagnation, sought for fresh activity. His whole desire now was set on his +uncle’s death. He kept on dreaming the same dream: a telegram was handed +to him one morning, early, which announced the Vicar’s sudden demise, and +freedom was in his grasp. When he awoke and found it was nothing but a dream he +was filled with sombre rage. He occupied himself, now that the event seemed +likely to happen at any time, with elaborate plans for the future. In these he +passed rapidly over the year which he must spend before it was possible for him +to be qualified and dwelt on the journey to Spain on which his heart was set. +He read books about that country, which he borrowed from the free library, and +already he knew from photographs exactly what each city looked like. He saw +himself lingering in Cordova on the bridge that spanned the Gaudalquivir; he +wandered through tortuous streets in Toledo and sat in churches where he wrung +from El Greco the secret which he felt the mysterious painter held for him. +Athelny entered into his humour, and on Sunday afternoons they made out +elaborate itineraries so that Philip should miss nothing that was noteworthy. +To cheat his impatience Philip began to teach himself Spanish, and in the +deserted sitting-room in Harrington Street he spent an hour every evening doing +Spanish exercises and puzzling out with an English translation by his side the +magnificent phrases of Don Quixote. Athelny gave him a lesson once a week, and +Philip learned a few sentences to help him on his journey. Mrs. Athelny laughed +at them. +</p> + +<p> +“You two and your Spanish!” she said. “Why don’t you do +something useful?” +</p> + +<p> +But Sally, who was growing up and was to put up her hair at Christmas, stood by +sometimes and listened in her grave way while her father and Philip exchanged +remarks in a language she did not understand. She thought her father the most +wonderful man who had ever existed, and she expressed her opinion of Philip +only through her father’s commendations. +</p> + +<p> +“Father thinks a rare lot of your Uncle Philip,” she remarked to +her brothers and sisters. +</p> + +<p> +Thorpe, the eldest boy, was old enough to go on the Arethusa, and Athelny +regaled his family with magnificent descriptions of the appearance the lad +would make when he came back in uniform for his holidays. As soon as Sally was +seventeen she was to be apprenticed to a dressmaker. Athelny in his rhetorical +way talked of the birds, strong enough to fly now, who were leaving the +parental nest, and with tears in his eyes told them that the nest would be +there still if ever they wished to return to it. A shakedown and a dinner would +always be theirs, and the heart of a father would never be closed to the +troubles of his children. +</p> + +<p> +“You do talk, Athelny,” said his wife. “I don’t know +what trouble they’re likely to get into so long as they’re steady. +So long as you’re honest and not afraid of work you’ll never be out +of a job, that’s what I think, and I can tell you I shan’t be sorry +when I see the last of them earning their own living.” +</p> + +<p> +Child-bearing, hard work, and constant anxiety were beginning to tell on Mrs. +Athelny; and sometimes her back ached in the evening so that she had to sit +down and rest herself. Her ideal of happiness was to have a girl to do the +rough work so that she need not herself get up before seven. Athelny waved his +beautiful white hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my Betty, we’ve deserved well of the state, you and I. +We’ve reared nine healthy children, and the boys shall serve their king; +the girls shall cook and sew and in their turn breed healthy children.” +He turned to Sally, and to comfort her for the anti-climax of the contrast +added grandiloquently: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” +</p> + +<p> +Athelny had lately added socialism to the other contradictory theories he +vehemently believed in, and he stated now: +</p> + +<p> +“In a socialist state we should be richly pensioned, you and I, +Betty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t talk to me about your socialists, I’ve got no +patience with them,” she cried. “It only means that another lot of +lazy loafers will make a good thing out of the working classes. My motto is, +leave me alone; I don’t want anyone interfering with me; I’ll make +the best of a bad job, and the devil take the hindmost.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’you call life a bad job?” said Athelny. “Never! +We’ve had our ups and downs, we’ve had our struggles, we’ve +always been poor, but it’s been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I +say when I look round at my children.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do talk, Athelny,” she said, looking at him, not with anger +but with scornful calm. “You’ve had the pleasant part of the +children, I’ve had the bearing of them, and the bearing with them. I +don’t say that I’m not fond of them, now they’re there, but +if I had my time over again I’d remain single. Why, if I’d remained +single I might have a little shop by now, and four or five hundred pounds in +the bank, and a girl to do the rough work. Oh, I wouldn’t go over my life +again, not for something.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought of the countless millions to whom life is no more than unending +labour, neither beautiful nor ugly, but just to be accepted in the same spirit +as one accepts the changes of the seasons. Fury seized him because it all +seemed useless. He could not reconcile himself to the belief that life had no +meaning and yet everything he saw, all his thoughts, added to the force of his +conviction. But though fury seized him it was a joyful fury. Life was not so +horrible if it was meaningless, and he faced it with a strange sense of power. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CIX</h2> + +<p> +The autumn passed into winter. Philip had left his address with Mrs. Foster, +his uncle’s housekeeper, so that she might communicate with him, but +still went once a week to the hospital on the chance of there being a letter. +One evening he saw his name on an envelope in a handwriting he had hoped never +to see again. It gave him a queer feeling. For a little while he could not +bring himself to take it. It brought back a host of hateful memories. But at +length, impatient with himself, he ripped open the envelope. +</p> + +<p> +7 William Street, Fitzroy Square. +</p> + +<p> +Dear Phil, +</p> + +<p> +Can I see you for a minute or two as soon as possible. I am in awful trouble +and don’t know what to do. It’s not money. +</p> + +<p> +                                                 Yours truly,<br/> +                                                         Mildred. +</p> + +<p> +He tore the letter into little bits and going out into the street scattered +them in the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see her damned,” he muttered. +</p> + +<p> +A feeling of disgust surged up in him at the thought of seeing her again. He +did not care if she was in distress, it served her right whatever it was, he +thought of her with hatred, and the love he had had for her aroused his +loathing. His recollections filled him with nausea, and as he walked across the +Thames he drew himself aside in an instinctive withdrawal from his thought of +her. He went to bed, but he could not sleep; he wondered what was the matter +with her, and he could not get out of his head the fear that she was ill and +hungry; she would not have written to him unless she were desperate. He was +angry with himself for his weakness, but he knew that he would have no peace +unless he saw her. Next morning he wrote a letter-card and posted it on his way +to the shop. He made it as stiff as he could and said merely that he was sorry +she was in difficulties and would come to the address she had given at seven +o’clock that evening. +</p> + +<p> +It was that of a shabby lodging-house in a sordid street; and when, sick at the +thought of seeing her, he asked whether she was in, a wild hope seized him that +she had left. It looked the sort of place people moved in and out of +frequently. He had not thought of looking at the postmark on her letter and did +not know how many days it had lain in the rack. The woman who answered the bell +did not reply to his inquiry, but silently preceded him along the passage and +knocked on a door at the back. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Miller, a gentleman to see you,” she called. +</p> + +<p> +The door was slightly opened, and Mildred looked out suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Come in.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked in and she closed the door. It was a very small bed-room, untidy as +was every place she lived in; there was a pair of shoes on the floor, lying +apart from one another and uncleaned; a hat was on the chest of drawers, with +false curls beside it; and there was a blouse on the table. Philip looked for +somewhere to put his hat. The hooks behind the door were laden with skirts, and +he noticed that they were muddy at the hem. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, won’t you?” she said. Then she gave a little +awkward laugh. “I suppose you were surprised to hear from me +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re awfully hoarse,” he answered. “Have you got a +sore throat?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have had for some time.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not say anything. He waited for her to explain why she wanted to see +him. The look of the room told him clearly enough that she had gone back to the +life from which he had taken her. He wondered what had happened to the baby; +there was a photograph of it on the chimney-piece, but no sign in the room that +a child was ever there. Mildred was holding her handkerchief. She made it into +a little ball, and passed it from hand to hand. He saw that she was very +nervous. She was staring at the fire, and he could look at her without meeting +her eyes. She was much thinner than when she had left him; and the skin, yellow +and dryish, was drawn more tightly over her cheekbones. She had dyed her hair +and it was now flaxen: it altered her a good deal, and made her look more +vulgar. +</p> + +<p> +“I was relieved to get your letter, I can tell you,” she said at +last. “I thought p’raps you weren’t at the ’ospital any +more.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’re qualified by now, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“How’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m no longer at the hospital. I had to give it up eighteen months +ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are changeable. You don’t seem as if you could stick to +anything.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent for another moment, and when he went on it was with coldness. +</p> + +<p> +“I lost the little money I had in an unlucky speculation and I +couldn’t afford to go on with the medical. I had to earn my living as +best I could.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m in a shop.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a quick glance and turned her eyes away at once. He thought that +she reddened. She dabbed her palms nervously with the handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve not forgotten all your doctoring, have you?” She +jerked the words out quite oddly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not entirely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because that’s why I wanted to see you.” Her voice sank to a +hoarse whisper. “I don’t know what’s the matter with +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you go to a hospital?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like to do that, and have all the stoodents staring at me, +and I’m afraid they’d want to keep me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you complaining of?” asked Philip coldly, with the +stereotyped phrase used in the out-patients’ room. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve come out in a rash, and I can’t get rid of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt a twinge of horror in his heart. Sweat broke out on his forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me look at your throat?” +</p> + +<p> +He took her over to the window and made such examination as he could. Suddenly +he caught sight of her eyes. There was deadly fear in them. It was horrible to +see. She was terrified. She wanted him to reassure her; she looked at him +pleadingly, not daring to ask for words of comfort but with all her nerves +astrung to receive them: he had none to offer her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you’re very ill indeed,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you think it is?” +</p> + +<p> +When he told her she grew deathly pale, and her lips even turned, yellow. she +began to cry, hopelessly, quietly at first and then with choking sobs. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry,” he said at last. “But I had to +tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may just as well kill myself and have done with it.” +</p> + +<p> +He took no notice of the threat. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got any money?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Six or seven pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must give up this life, you know. Don’t you think you could +find some work to do? I’m afraid I can’t help you much. I only get +twelve bob a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is there I can do now?” she cried impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn it all, you MUST try to get something.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke to her very gravely, telling her of her own danger and the danger to +which she exposed others, and she listened sullenly. He tried to console her. +At last he brought her to a sulky acquiescence in which she promised to do all +he advised. He wrote a prescription, which he said he would leave at the +nearest chemist’s, and he impressed upon her the necessity of taking her +medicine with the utmost regularity. Getting up to go, he held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be downhearted, you’ll soon get over your +throat.” +</p> + +<p> +But as he went her face became suddenly distorted, and she caught hold of his +coat. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t leave me,” she cried hoarsely. “I’m so +afraid, don’t leave me alone yet. Phil, please. There’s no one else +I can go to, you’re the only friend I’ve ever had.” +</p> + +<p> +He felt the terror of her soul, and it was strangely like that terror he had +seen in his uncle’s eyes when he feared that he might die. Philip looked +down. Twice that woman had come into his life and made him wretched; she had no +claim upon him; and yet, he knew not why, deep in his heart was a strange +aching; it was that which, when he received her letter, had left him no peace +till he obeyed her summons. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I shall never really quite get over it,” he said to +himself. +</p> + +<p> +What perplexed him was that he felt a curious physical distaste, which made it +uncomfortable for him to be near her. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want me to do?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go out and dine together. I’ll pay.” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated. He felt that she was creeping back again into his life when he +thought she was gone out of it for ever. She watched him with sickening +anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know I’ve treated you shocking, but don’t leave me +alone now. You’ve had your revenge. If you leave me by myself now I +don’t know what I shall do.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, I don’t mind,” he said, “but we shall have +to do it on the cheap, I haven’t got money to throw away these +days.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat down and put her shoes on, then changed her skirt and put on a hat; and +they walked out together till they found a restaurant in the Tottenham Court +Road. Philip had got out of the habit of eating at those hours, and +Mildred’s throat was so sore that she could not swallow. They had a +little cold ham and Philip drank a glass of beer. They sat opposite one +another, as they had so often sat before; he wondered if she remembered; they +had nothing to say to one another and would have sat in silence if Philip had +not forced himself to talk. In the bright light of the restaurant, with its +vulgar looking-glasses that reflected in an endless series, she looked old and +haggard. Philip was anxious to know about the child, but he had not the courage +to ask. At last she said: +</p> + +<p> +“You know baby died last summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You might say you’re sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not,” he answered, “I’m very glad.” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him and, understanding what he meant, looked away +</p> + +<p> +“You were rare stuck on it at one time, weren’t you? I always +thought it funny like how you could see so much in another man’s +child.” +</p> + +<p> +When they had finished eating they called at the chemist’s for the +medicine Philip had ordered, and going back to the shabby room he made her take +a dose. Then they sat together till it was time for Philip to go back to +Harrington Street. He was hideously bored. +</p> + +<p> +Philip went to see her every day. She took the medicine he had prescribed and +followed his directions, and soon the results were so apparent that she gained +the greatest confidence in Philip’s skill. As she grew better she grew +less despondent. She talked more freely. +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as I can get a job I shall be all right,” she said. +“I’ve had my lesson now and I mean to profit by it. No more +racketing about for yours truly.” +</p> + +<p> +Each time he saw her, Philip asked whether she had found work. She told him not +to worry, she would find something to do as soon as she wanted it; she had +several strings to her bow; it was all the better not to do anything for a week +or two. He could not deny this, but at the end of that time he became more +insistent. She laughed at him, she was much more cheerful now, and said he was +a fussy old thing. She told him long stories of the manageresses she +interviewed, for her idea was to get work at some eating-house; what they said +and what she answered. Nothing definite was fixed, but she was sure to settle +something at the beginning of the following week: there was no use hurrying, +and it would be a mistake to take something unsuitable. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s absurd to talk like that,” he said impatiently. +“You must take anything you can get. I can’t help you, and your +money won’t last for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I’ve not come to the end of it yet and chance it.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her sharply. It was three weeks since his first visit, and she had +then less than seven pounds. Suspicion seized him. He remembered some of the +things she had said. He put two and two together. He wondered whether she had +made any attempt to find work. Perhaps she had been lying to him all the time. +It was very strange that her money should have lasted so long. +</p> + +<p> +“What is your rent here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the landlady’s very nice, different from what some of them +are; she’s quite willing to wait till it’s convenient for me to +pay.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent. What he suspected was so horrible that he hesitated. It was no +use to ask her, she would deny everything; if he wanted to know he must find +out for himself. He was in the habit of leaving her every evening at eight, and +when the clock struck he got up; but instead of going back to Harrington Street +he stationed himself at the corner of Fitzroy Square so that he could see +anyone who came along William Street. It seemed to him that he waited an +interminable time, and he was on the point of going away, thinking his surmise +had been mistaken, when the door of No. 7 opened and Mildred came out. He fell +back into the darkness and watched her walk towards him. She had on the hat +with a quantity of feathers on it which he had seen in her room, and she wore a +dress he recognized, too showy for the street and unsuitable to the time of +year. He followed her slowly till she came into the Tottenham Court Road, where +she slackened her pace; at the corner of Oxford Street she stopped, looked +round, and crossed over to a music-hall. He went up to her and touched her on +the arm. He saw that she had rouged her cheeks and painted her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going, Mildred?” +</p> + +<p> +She started at the sound of his voice and reddened as she always did when she +was caught in a lie; then the flash of anger which he knew so well came into +her eyes as she instinctively sought to defend herself by abuse. But she did +not say the words which were on the tip of her tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I was only going to see the show. It gives me the hump sitting every +night by myself.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not pretend to believe her. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t. Good heavens, I’ve told you fifty times how +dangerous it is. You must stop this sort of thing at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hold your jaw,” she cried roughly. “How d’you +suppose I’m going to live?” +</p> + +<p> +He took hold of her arm and without thinking what he was doing tried to drag +her away. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake come along. Let me take you home. You don’t +know what you’re doing. It’s criminal.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do I care? Let them take their chance. Men haven’t been so +good to me that I need bother my head about them.” +</p> + +<p> +She pushed him away and walking up to the box-office put down her money. Philip +had threepence in his pocket. He could not follow. He turned away and walked +slowly down Oxford Street. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t do anything more,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +That was the end. He did not see her again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CX</h2> + +<p> +Christmas that year falling on Thursday, the shop was to close for four days: +Philip wrote to his uncle asking whether it would be convenient for him to +spend the holidays at the vicarage. He received an answer from Mrs. Foster, +saying that Mr. Carey was not well enough to write himself, but wished to see +his nephew and would be glad if he came down. She met Philip at the door, and +when she shook hands with him, said: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find him changed since you was here last, sir; but +you’ll pretend you don’t notice anything, won’t you, sir? +He’s that nervous about himself.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip nodded, and she led him into the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s Mr. Philip, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The Vicar of Blackstable was a dying man. There was no mistaking that when you +looked at the hollow cheeks and the shrunken body. He sat huddled in the +arm-chair, with his head strangely thrown back, and a shawl over his shoulders. +He could not walk now without the help of sticks, and his hands trembled so +that he could only feed himself with difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t last long now,” thought Philip, as he looked at +him. +</p> + +<p> +“How d’you think I’m looking?” asked the Vicar. +“D’you think I’ve changed since you were here last?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you look stronger than you did last summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was the heat. That always upsets me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey’s history of the last few months consisted in the number of +weeks he had spent in his bed-room and the number of weeks he had spent +downstairs. He had a hand-bell by his side and while he talked he rang it for +Mrs. Foster, who sat in the next room ready to attend to his wants, to ask on +what day of the month he had first left his room. +</p> + +<p> +“On the seventh of November, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Carey looked at Philip to see how he took the information. +</p> + +<p> +“But I eat well still, don’t I, Mrs. Foster?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, you’ve got a wonderful appetite.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t seem to put on flesh though.” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing interested him now but his health. He was set upon one thing +indomitably and that was living, just living, notwithstanding the monotony of +his life and the constant pain which allowed him to sleep only when he was +under the influence of morphia. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s terrible, the amount of money I have to spend on +doctor’s bills.” He tinkled his bell again. “Mrs. Foster, +show Master Philip the chemist’s bill.” +</p> + +<p> +Patiently she took it off the chimney-piece and handed it to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s only one month. I was wondering if as you’re +doctoring yourself you couldn’t get me the drugs cheaper. I thought of +getting them down from the stores, but then there’s the postage.” +</p> + +<p> +Though apparently taking so little interest in him that he did not trouble to +inquire what Phil was doing, he seemed glad to have him there. He asked how +long he could stay, and when Philip told him he must leave on Tuesday morning, +expressed a wish that the visit might have been longer. He told him minutely +all his symptoms and repeated what the doctor had said of him. He broke off to +ring his bell, and when Mrs. Foster came in, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I wasn’t sure if you were there. I only rang to see if you +were.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone he explained to Philip that it made him uneasy if he was not +certain that Mrs. Foster was within earshot; she knew exactly what to do with +him if anything happened. Philip, seeing that she was tired and that her eyes +were heavy from want of sleep, suggested that he was working her too hard. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nonsense,” said the Vicar, “she’s as strong as a +horse.” And when next she came in to give him his medicine he said to +her: +</p> + +<p> +“Master Philip says you’ve got too much to do, Mrs. Foster. You +like looking after me, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mind, sir. I want to do everything I can.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently the medicine took effect and Mr. Carey fell asleep. Philip went into +the kitchen and asked Mrs. Foster whether she could stand the work. He saw that +for some months she had had little peace. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, what can I do?” she answered. “The poor old +gentleman’s so dependent on me, and, although he is troublesome +sometimes, you can’t help liking him, can you? I’ve been here so +many years now, I don’t know what I shall do when he comes to go.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip saw that she was really fond of the old man. She washed and dressed him, +gave him his food, and was up half a dozen times in the night; for she slept in +the next room to his and whenever he awoke he tinkled his little bell till she +came in. He might die at any moment, but he might live for months. It was +wonderful that she should look after a stranger with such patient tenderness, +and it was tragic and pitiful that she should be alone in the world to care for +him. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Philip that the religion which his uncle had preached all his life +was now of no more than formal importance to him: every Sunday the curate came +and administered to him Holy Communion, and he often read his Bible; but it was +clear that he looked upon death with horror. He believed that it was the +gateway to life everlasting, but he did not want to enter upon that life. In +constant pain, chained to his chair and having given up the hope of ever +getting out into the open again, like a child in the hands of a woman to whom +he paid wages, he clung to the world he knew. +</p> + +<p> +In Philip’s head was a question he could not ask, because he was aware +that his uncle would never give any but a conventional answer: he wondered +whether at the very end, now that the machine was painfully wearing itself out, +the clergyman still believed in immortality; perhaps at the bottom of his soul, +not allowed to shape itself into words in case it became urgent, was the +conviction that there was no God and after this life nothing. +</p> + +<p> +On the evening of Boxing Day Philip sat in the dining-room with his uncle. He +had to start very early next morning in order to get to the shop by nine, and +he was to say good-night to Mr. Carey then. The Vicar of Blackstable was dozing +and Philip, lying on the sofa by the window, let his book fall on his knees and +looked idly round the room. He asked himself how much the furniture would +fetch. He had walked round the house and looked at the things he had known from +his childhood; there were a few pieces of china which might go for a decent +price and Philip wondered if it would be worth while to take them up to London; +but the furniture was of the Victorian order, of mahogany, solid and ugly; it +would go for nothing at an auction. There were three or four thousand books, +but everyone knew how badly they sold, and it was not probable that they would +fetch more than a hundred pounds. Philip did not know how much his uncle would +leave, and he reckoned out for the hundredth time what was the least sum upon +which he could finish the curriculum at the hospital, take his degree, and live +during the time he wished to spend on hospital appointments. He looked at the +old man, sleeping restlessly: there was no humanity left in that shrivelled +face; it was the face of some queer animal. Philip thought how easy it would be +to finish that useless life. He had thought it each evening when Mrs. Foster +prepared for his uncle the medicine which was to give him an easy night. There +were two bottles: one contained a drug which he took regularly, and the other +an opiate if the pain grew unendurable. This was poured out for him and left by +his bed-side. He generally took it at three or four in the morning. It would be +a simple thing to double the dose; he would die in the night, and no one would +suspect anything; for that was how Doctor Wigram expected him to die. The end +would be painless. Philip clenched his hands as he thought of the money he +wanted so badly. A few more months of that wretched life could matter nothing +to the old man, but the few more months meant everything to him: he was getting +to the end of his endurance, and when he thought of going back to work in the +morning he shuddered with horror. His heart beat quickly at the thought which +obsessed him, and though he made an effort to put it out of his mind he could +not. It would be so easy, so desperately easy. He had no feeling for the old +man, he had never liked him; he had been selfish all his life, selfish to his +wife who adored him, indifferent to the boy who had been put in his charge; he +was not a cruel man, but a stupid, hard man, eaten up with a small sensuality. +It would be easy, desperately easy. Philip did not dare. He was afraid of +remorse; it would be no good having the money if he regretted all his life what +he had done. Though he had told himself so often that regret was futile, there +were certain things that came back to him occasionally and worried him. He +wished they were not on his conscience. +</p> + +<p> +His uncle opened his eyes; Philip was glad, for he looked a little more human +then. He was frankly horrified at the idea that had come to him, it was murder +that he was meditating; and he wondered if other people had such thoughts or +whether he was abnormal and depraved. He supposed he could not have done it +when it came to the point, but there the thought was, constantly recurring: if +he held his hand it was from fear. His uncle spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not looking forward to my death, Philip?” Philip felt +his heart beat against his chest. +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a good boy. I shouldn’t like you to do that. +You’ll get a little bit of money when I pass away, but you mustn’t +look forward to it. It wouldn’t profit you if you did.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke in a low voice, and there was a curious anxiety in his tone. It sent a +pang into Philip’s heart. He wondered what strange insight might have led +the old man to surmise what strange desires were in Philip’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll live for another twenty years,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I can’t expect to do that, but if I take care of myself +I don’t see why I shouldn’t last another three or four.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent for a while, and Philip found nothing to say. Then, as if he had +been thinking it all over, the old man spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“Everyone has the right to live as long as he can.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip wanted to distract his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, I suppose you never hear from Miss Wilkinson now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I had a letter some time this year. She’s married, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she married a widower. I believe they’re quite +comfortable.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXI</h2> + +<p> +Next day Philip began work again, but the end which he expected within a few +weeks did not come. The weeks passed into months. The winter wore away, and in +the parks the trees burst into bud and into leaf. A terrible lassitude settled +upon Philip. Time was passing, though it went with such heavy feet, and he +thought that his youth was going and soon he would have lost it and nothing +would have been accomplished. His work seemed more aimless now that there was +the certainty of his leaving it. He became skilful in the designing of +costumes, and though he had no inventive faculty acquired quickness in the +adaptation of French fashions to the English market. Sometimes he was not +displeased with his drawings, but they always bungled them in the execution. He +was amused to notice that he suffered from a lively irritation when his ideas +were not adequately carried out. He had to walk warily. Whenever he suggested +something original Mr. Sampson turned it down: their customers did not want +anything outre, it was a very respectable class of business, and when you had a +connection of that sort it wasn’t worth while taking liberties with it. +Once or twice he spoke sharply to Philip; he thought the young man was getting +a bit above himself, because Philip’s ideas did not always coincide with +his own. +</p> + +<p> +“You jolly well take care, my fine young fellow, or one of these days +you’ll find yourself in the street.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip longed to give him a punch on the nose, but he restrained himself. After +all it could not possibly last much longer, and then he would be done with all +these people for ever. Sometimes in comic desperation he cried out that his +uncle must be made of iron. What a constitution! The ills he suffered from +would have killed any decent person twelve months before. When at last the news +came that the Vicar was dying Philip, who had been thinking of other things, +was taken by surprise. It was in July, and in another fortnight he was to have +gone for his holiday. He received a letter from Mrs. Foster to say the doctor +did not give Mr. Carey many days to live, and if Philip wished to see him again +he must come at once. Philip went to the buyer and told him he wanted to leave. +Mr. Sampson was a decent fellow, and when he knew the circumstances made no +difficulties. Philip said good-bye to the people in his department; the reason +of his leaving had spread among them in an exaggerated form, and they thought +he had come into a fortune. Mrs. Hodges had tears in her eyes when she shook +hands with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose we shan’t often see you again,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad to get away from Lynn’s,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +It was strange, but he was actually sorry to leave these people whom he thought +he had loathed, and when he drove away from the house in Harrington Street it +was with no exultation. He had so anticipated the emotions he would experience +on this occasion that now he felt nothing: he was as unconcerned as though he +were going for a few days’ holiday. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a rotten nature,” he said to himself. “I look +forward to things awfully, and then when they come I’m always +disappointed.” +</p> + +<p> +He reached Blackstable early in the afternoon. Mrs. Foster met him at the door, +and her face told him that his uncle was not yet dead. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a little better today,” she said. “He’s got +a wonderful constitution.” +</p> + +<p> +She led him into the bed-room where Mr. Carey lay on his back. He gave Philip a +slight smile, in which was a trace of satisfied cunning at having circumvented +his enemy once more. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was all up with me yesterday,” he said, in an +exhausted voice. “They’d all given me up, hadn’t you, Mrs. +Foster?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a wonderful constitution, there’s no denying +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s life in the old dog yet.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Foster said that the Vicar must not talk, it would tire him; she treated +him like a child, with kindly despotism; and there was something childish in +the old man’s satisfaction at having cheated all their expectations. It +struck him at once that Philip had been sent for, and he was amused that he had +been brought on a fool’s errand. If he could only avoid another of his +heart attacks he would get well enough in a week or two; and he had had the +attacks several times before; he always felt as if he were going to die, but he +never did. They all talked of his constitution, but they none of them knew how +strong it was. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to stay a day or two?” He asked Philip, pretending +to believe he had come down for a holiday. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking of it,” Philip answered cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“A breath of sea-air will do you good.” +</p> + +<p> +Presently Dr. Wigram came, and after he had seen the Vicar talked with Philip. +He adopted an appropriate manner. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid it is the end this time, Philip,” he said. +“It’ll be a great loss to all of us. I’ve known him for +five-and-thirty years.” +</p> + +<p> +“He seems well enough now,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m keeping him alive on drugs, but it can’t last. It was +dreadful these last two days, I thought he was dead half a dozen times.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor was silent for a minute or two, but at the gate he said suddenly to +Philip: +</p> + +<p> +“Has Mrs. Foster said anything to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re very superstitious, these people: she’s got hold of +an idea that he’s got something on his mind, and he can’t die till +he gets rid of it; and he can’t bring himself to confess it.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not answer, and the doctor went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it’s nonsense. He’s led a very good life, +he’s done his duty, he’s been a good parish priest, and I’m +sure we shall all miss him; he can’t have anything to reproach himself +with. I very much doubt whether the next vicar will suit us half so +well.” +</p> + +<p> +For several days Mr. Carey continued without change. His appetite which had +been excellent left him, and he could eat little. Dr. Wigram did not hesitate +now to still the pain of the neuritis which tormented him; and that, with the +constant shaking of his palsied limbs, was gradually exhausting him. His mind +remained clear. Philip and Mrs. Foster nursed him between them. She was so +tired by the many months during which she had been attentive to all his wants +that Philip insisted on sitting up with the patient so that she might have her +night’s rest. He passed the long hours in an arm-chair so that he should +not sleep soundly, and read by the light of shaded candles The Thousand and One +Nights. He had not read them since he was a little boy, and they brought back +his childhood to him. Sometimes he sat and listened to the silence of the +night. When the effects of the opiate wore off Mr. Carey grew restless and kept +him constantly busy. +</p> + +<p> +At last, early one morning, when the birds were chattering noisily in the +trees, he heard his name called. He went up to the bed. Mr. Carey was lying on +his back, with his eyes looking at the ceiling; he did not turn them on Philip. +Philip saw that sweat was on his forehead, and he took a towel and wiped it. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Philip?” the old man asked. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was startled because the voice was suddenly changed. It was hoarse and +low. So would a man speak if he was cold with fear. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, d’you want anything?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause, and still the unseeing eyes stared at the ceiling. Then a +twitch passed over the face. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’m going to die,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Philip. “You’re not going to +die for years.” +</p> + +<p> +Two tears were wrung from the old man’s eyes. They moved Philip horribly. +His uncle had never betrayed any particular emotion in the affairs of life; and +it was dreadful to see them now, for they signified a terror that was +unspeakable. +</p> + +<p> +“Send for Mr. Simmonds,” he said. “I want to take the +Communion.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Simmonds was the curate. +</p> + +<p> +“Now?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Soon, or else it’ll be too late.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip went to awake Mrs. Foster, but it was later than he thought and she was +up already. He told her to send the gardener with a message, and he went back +to his uncle’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you sent for Mr. Simmonds?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. Philip sat by the bed-side, and occasionally wiped the +sweating forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me hold your hand, Philip,” the old man said at last. +</p> + +<p> +Philip gave him his hand and he clung to it as to life, for comfort in his +extremity. Perhaps he had never really loved anyone in all his days, but now he +turned instinctively to a human being. His hand was wet and cold. It grasped +Philip’s with feeble, despairing energy. The old man was fighting with +the fear of death. And Philip thought that all must go through that. Oh, how +monstrous it was, and they could believe in a God that allowed his creatures to +suffer such a cruel torture! He had never cared for his uncle, and for two +years he had longed every day for his death; but now he could not overcome the +compassion that filled his heart. What a price it was to pay for being other +than the beasts! +</p> + +<p> +They remained in silence broken only once by a low inquiry from Mr. Carey. +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t he come yet?” +</p> + +<p> +At last the housekeeper came in softly to say that Mr. Simmonds was there. He +carried a bag in which were his surplice and his hood. Mrs. Foster brought the +communion plate. Mr. Simmonds shook hands silently with Philip, and then with +professional gravity went to the sick man’s side. Philip and the maid +went out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Philip walked round the garden all fresh and dewy in the morning. The birds +were singing gaily. The sky was blue, but the air, salt-laden, was sweet and +cool. The roses were in full bloom. The green of the trees, the green of the +lawns, was eager and brilliant. Philip walked, and as he walked he thought of +the mystery which was proceeding in that bedroom. It gave him a peculiar +emotion. Presently Mrs. Foster came out to him and said that his uncle wished +to see him. The curate was putting his things back into the black bag. The sick +man turned his head a little and greeted him with a smile. Philip was +astonished, for there was a change in him, an extraordinary change; his eyes +had no longer the terror-stricken look, and the pinching of his face had gone: +he looked happy and serene. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m quite prepared now,” he said, and his voice had a +different tone in it. “When the Lord sees fit to call me I am ready to +give my soul into his hands.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip did not speak. He could see that his uncle was sincere. It was almost a +miracle. He had taken the body and blood of his Savior, and they had given him +strength so that he no longer feared the inevitable passage into the night. He +knew he was going to die: he was resigned. He only said one thing more: +</p> + +<p> +“I shall rejoin my dear wife.” +</p> + +<p> +It startled Philip. He remembered with what a callous selfishness his uncle had +treated her, how obtuse he had been to her humble, devoted love. The curate, +deeply moved, went away and Mrs. Foster, weeping, accompanied him to the door. +Mr. Carey, exhausted by his effort, fell into a light doze, and Philip sat down +by the bed and waited for the end. The morning wore on, and the old man’s +breathing grew stertorous. The doctor came and said he was dying. He was +unconscious and he pecked feebly at the sheets; he was restless and he cried +out. Dr. Wigram gave him a hypodermic injection. +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t do any good now, he may die at any moment.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor looked at his watch and then at the patient. Philip saw that it was +one o’clock. Dr. Wigram was thinking of his dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no use your waiting,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing I can do,” said the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +When he was gone Mrs. Foster asked Philip if he would go to the carpenter, who +was also the undertaker, and tell him to send up a woman to lay out the body. +</p> + +<p> +“You want a little fresh air,” she said, “it’ll do you +good.” +</p> + +<p> +The undertaker lived half a mile away. When Philip gave him his message, he +said: +</p> + +<p> +“When did the poor old gentleman die?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip hesitated. It occurred to him that it would seem brutal to fetch a woman +to wash the body while his uncle still lived, and he wondered why Mrs. Foster +had asked him to come. They would think he was in a great hurry to kill the old +man off. He thought the undertaker looked at him oddly. He repeated the +question. It irritated Philip. It was no business of his. +</p> + +<p> +“When did the Vicar pass away?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s first impulse was to say that it had just happened, but then it +would seem inexplicable if the sick man lingered for several hours. He reddened +and answered awkwardly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he isn’t exactly dead yet.” +</p> + +<p> +The undertaker looked at him in perplexity, and he hurried to explain. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Foster is all alone and she wants a woman there. You understood, +don’t you? He may be dead by now.” +</p> + +<p> +The undertaker nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I see. I’ll send someone up at once.” +</p> + +<p> +When Philip got back to the vicarage he went up to the bed-room. Mrs. Foster +rose from her chair by the bed-side. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s just as he was when you left,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She went down to get herself something to eat, and Philip watched curiously the +process of death. There was nothing human now in the unconscious being that +struggled feebly. Sometimes a muttered ejaculation issued from the loose mouth. +The sun beat down hotly from a cloudless sky, but the trees in the garden were +pleasant and cool. It was a lovely day. A bluebottle buzzed against the +windowpane. Suddenly there was a loud rattle, it made Philip start, it was +horribly frightening; a movement passed through the limbs and the old man was +dead. The machine had run down. The bluebottle buzzed, buzzed noisily against +the windowpane. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXII</h2> + +<p> +Josiah Graves in his masterful way made arrangements, becoming but economical, +for the funeral; and when it was over came back to the vicarage with Philip. +The will was in his charge, and with a due sense of the fitness of things he +read it to Philip over an early cup of tea. It was written on half a sheet of +paper and left everything Mr. Carey had to his nephew. There was the furniture, +about eighty pounds at the bank, twenty shares in the A. B. C. company, a few +in Allsop’s brewery, some in the Oxford music-hall, and a few more in a +London restaurant. They had been bought under Mr. Graves’ direction, and +he told Philip with satisfaction: +</p> + +<p> +“You see, people must eat, they will drink, and they want amusement. +You’re always safe if you put your money in what the public thinks +necessities.” +</p> + +<p> +His words showed a nice discrimination between the grossness of the vulgar, +which he deplored but accepted, and the finer taste of the elect. Altogether in +investments there was about five hundred pounds; and to that must be added the +balance at the bank and what the furniture would fetch. It was riches to +Philip. He was not happy but infinitely relieved. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Graves left him, after they had discussed the auction which must be held as +soon as possible, and Philip sat himself down to go through the papers of the +deceased. The Rev. William Carey had prided himself on never destroying +anything, and there were piles of correspondence dating back for fifty years +and bundles upon bundles of neatly docketed bills. He had kept not only letters +addressed to him, but letters which himself had written. There was a yellow +packet of letters which he had written to his father in the forties, when as an +Oxford undergraduate he had gone to Germany for the long vacation. Philip read +them idly. It was a different William Carey from the William Carey he had +known, and yet there were traces in the boy which might to an acute observer +have suggested the man. The letters were formal and a little stilted. He showed +himself strenuous to see all that was noteworthy, and he described with a fine +enthusiasm the castles of the Rhine. The falls of Schaffhausen made him +‘offer reverent thanks to the all-powerful Creator of the universe, whose +works were wondrous and beautiful,’ and he could not help thinking that +they who lived in sight of ‘this handiwork of their blessed Maker must be +moved by the contemplation to lead pure and holy lives.’ Among some bills +Philip found a miniature which had been painted of William Carey soon after he +was ordained. It represented a thin young curate, with long hair that fell over +his head in natural curls, with dark eyes, large and dreamy, and a pale ascetic +face. Philip remembered the chuckle with which his uncle used to tell of the +dozens of slippers which were worked for him by adoring ladies. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the afternoon and all the evening Philip toiled through the +innumerable correspondence. He glanced at the address and at the signature, +then tore the letter in two and threw it into the washing-basket by his side. +Suddenly he came upon one signed Helen. He did not know the writing. It was +thin, angular, and old-fashioned. It began: my dear William, and ended: your +affectionate sister. Then it struck him that it was from his own mother. He had +never seen a letter of hers before, and her handwriting was strange to him. It +was about himself. +</p> + +<p> +My dear William, +</p> + +<p> +Stephen wrote to you to thank you for your congratulations on the birth of our +son and your kind wishes to myself. Thank God we are both well and I am deeply +thankful for the great mercy which has been shown me. Now that I can hold a pen +I want to tell you and dear Louisa myself how truly grateful I am to you both +for all your kindness to me now and always since my marriage. I am going to ask +you to do me a great favour. Both Stephen and I wish you to be the boy’s +godfather, and we hope that you will consent. I know I am not asking a small +thing, for I am sure you will take the responsibilities of the position very +seriously, but I am especially anxious that you should undertake this office +because you are a clergyman as well as the boy’s uncle. I am very anxious +for the boy’s welfare and I pray God night and day that he may grow into +a good, honest, and Christian man. With you to guide him I hope that he will +become a soldier in Christ’s Faith and be all the days of his life +God-fearing, humble, and pious. +</p> + +<p> +                                      Your affectionate sister,<br/> +                                                               Helen. +</p> + +<p> +Philip pushed the letter away and, leaning forward, rested his face on his +hands. It deeply touched and at the same time surprised him. He was astonished +at its religious tone, which seemed to him neither mawkish nor sentimental. He +knew nothing of his mother, dead now for nearly twenty years, but that she was +beautiful, and it was strange to learn that she was simple and pious. He had +never thought of that side of her. He read again what she said about him, what +she expected and thought about him; he had turned out very differently; he +looked at himself for a moment; perhaps it was better that she was dead. Then a +sudden impulse caused him to tear up the letter; its tenderness and simplicity +made it seem peculiarly private; he had a queer feeling that there was +something indecent in his reading what exposed his mother’s gentle soul. +He went on with the Vicar’s dreary correspondence. +</p> + +<p> +A few days later he went up to London, and for the first time for two years +entered by day the hall of St. Luke’s Hospital. He went to see the +secretary of the Medical School; he was surprised to see him and asked Philip +curiously what he had been doing. Philip’s experiences had given him a +certain confidence in himself and a different outlook upon many things: such a +question would have embarrassed him before; but now he answered coolly, with a +deliberate vagueness which prevented further inquiry, that private affairs had +obliged him to make a break in the curriculum; he was now anxious to qualify as +soon as possible. The first examination he could take was in midwifery and the +diseases of women, and he put his name down to be a clerk in the ward devoted +to feminine ailments; since it was holiday time there happened to be no +difficulty in getting a post as obstetric clerk; he arranged to undertake that +duty during the last week of August and the first two of September. After this +interview Philip walked through the Medical School, more or less deserted, for +the examinations at the end of the summer session were all over; and he +wandered along the terrace by the river-side. His heart was full. He thought +that now he could begin a new life, and he would put behind him all the errors, +follies, and miseries of the past. The flowing river suggested that everything +passed, was passing always, and nothing mattered; the future was before him +rich with possibilities. +</p> + +<p> +He went back to Blackstable and busied himself with the settling up of his +uncle’s estate. The auction was fixed for the middle of August, when the +presence of visitors for the summer holidays would make it possible to get +better prices. Catalogues were made out and sent to the various dealers in +second-hand books at Tercanbury, Maidstone, and Ashford. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon Philip took it into his head to go over to Tercanbury and see his +old school. He had not been there since the day when, with relief in his heart, +he had left it with the feeling that thenceforward he was his own master. It +was strange to wander through the narrow streets of Tercanbury which he had +known so well for so many years. He looked at the old shops, still there, still +selling the same things; the booksellers with school-books, pious works, and +the latest novels in one window and photographs of the Cathedral and of the +city in the other; the games shop, with its cricket bats, fishing tackle, +tennis rackets, and footballs; the tailor from whom he had got clothes all +through his boyhood; and the fishmonger where his uncle whenever he came to +Tercanbury bought fish. He wandered along the sordid street in which, behind a +high wall, lay the red brick house which was the preparatory school. Further on +was the gateway that led into King’s School, and he stood in the +quadrangle round which were the various buildings. It was just four and the +boys were hurrying out of school. He saw the masters in their gowns and +mortar-boards, and they were strange to him. It was more than ten years since +he had left and many changes had taken place. He saw the headmaster; he walked +slowly down from the schoolhouse to his own, talking to a big boy who Philip +supposed was in the sixth; he was little changed, tall, cadaverous, romantic as +Philip remembered him, with the same wild eyes; but the black beard was +streaked with gray now and the dark, sallow face was more deeply lined. Philip +had an impulse to go up and speak to him, but he was afraid he would have +forgotten him, and he hated the thought of explaining who he was. +</p> + +<p> +Boys lingered talking to one another, and presently some who had hurried to +change came out to play fives; others straggled out in twos and threes and went +out of the gateway, Philip knew they were going up to the cricket ground; +others again went into the precincts to bat at the nets. Philip stood among +them a stranger; one or two gave him an indifferent glance; but visitors, +attracted by the Norman staircase, were not rare and excited little attention. +Philip looked at them curiously. He thought with melancholy of the distance +that separated him from them, and he thought bitterly how much he had wanted to +do and how little done. It seemed to him that all those years, vanished beyond +recall, had been utterly wasted. The boys, fresh and buoyant, were doing the +same things that he had done, it seemed that not a day had passed since he left +the school, and yet in that place where at least by name he had known everybody +now he knew not a soul. In a few years these too, others taking their place, +would stand alien as he stood; but the reflection brought him no solace; it +merely impressed upon him the futility of human existence. Each generation +repeated the trivial round. He wondered what had become of the boys who were +his companions: they were nearly thirty now; some would be dead, but others +were married and had children; they were soldiers and parsons, doctors, +lawyers; they were staid men who were beginning to put youth behind them. Had +any of them made such a hash of life as he? He thought of the boy he had been +devoted to; it was funny, he could not recall his name; he remembered exactly +what he looked like, he had been his greatest friend; but his name would not +come back to him. He looked back with amusement on the jealous emotions he had +suffered on his account. It was irritating not to recollect his name. He longed +to be a boy again, like those he saw sauntering through the quadrangle, so +that, avoiding his mistakes, he might start fresh and make something more out +of life. He felt an intolerable loneliness. He almost regretted the penury +which he had suffered during the last two years, since the desperate struggle +merely to keep body and soul together had deadened the pain of living. In the +sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread: it was not a curse upon +mankind, but the balm which reconciled it to existence. +</p> + +<p> +But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the +pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a +decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that +he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and +pain, because it added to the richness of the design. He sought for beauty +consciously, and he remembered how even as a boy he had taken pleasure in the +Gothic cathedral as one saw it from the precincts; he went there and looked at +the massive pile, gray under the cloudy sky, with the central tower that rose +like the praise of men to their God; but the boys were batting at the nets, and +they were lissom and strong and active; he could not help hearing their shouts +and laughter. The cry of youth was insistent, and he saw the beautiful thing +before him only with his eyes. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXIII</h2> + +<p> +At the beginning of the last week in August Philip entered upon his duties in +the ‘district.’ They were arduous, for he had to attend on an +average three confinements a day. The patient had obtained a ‘card’ +from the hospital some time before; and when her time came it was taken to the +porter by a messenger, generally a little girl, who was then sent across the +road to the house in which Philip lodged. At night the porter, who had a +latch-key, himself came over and awoke Philip. It was mysterious then to get up +in the darkness and walk through the deserted streets of the South Side. At +those hours it was generally the husband who brought the card. If there had +been a number of babies before he took it for the most part with surly +indifference, but if newly married he was nervous and then sometimes strove to +allay his anxiety by getting drunk. Often there was a mile or more to walk, +during which Philip and the messenger discussed the conditions of labour and +the cost of living; Philip learnt about the various trades which were practised +on that side of the river. He inspired confidence in the people among whom he +was thrown, and during the long hours that he waited in a stuffy room, the +woman in labour lying on a large bed that took up half of it, her mother and +the midwife talked to him as naturally as they talked to one another. The +circumstances in which he had lived during the last two years had taught him +several things about the life of the very poor, which it amused them to find he +knew; and they were impressed because he was not deceived by their little +subterfuges. He was kind, and he had gentle hands, and he did not lose his +temper. They were pleased because he was not above drinking a cup of tea with +them, and when the dawn came and they were still waiting they offered him a +slice of bread and dripping; he was not squeamish and could eat most things now +with a good appetite. Some of the houses he went to, in filthy courts off a +dingy street, huddled against one another without light or air, were merely +squalid; but others, unexpectedly, though dilapidated, with worm-eaten floors +and leaking roofs, had the grand air: you found in them oak balusters +exquisitely carved, and the walls had still their panelling. These were thickly +inhabited. One family lived in each room, and in the daytime there was the +incessant noise of children playing in the court. The old walls were the +breeding-place of vermin; the air was so foul that often, feeling sick, Philip +had to light his pipe. The people who dwelt here lived from hand to mouth. +Babies were unwelcome, the man received them with surly anger, the mother with +despair; it was one more mouth to feed, and there was little enough wherewith +to feed those already there. Philip often discerned the wish that the child +might be born dead or might die quickly. He delivered one woman of twins (a +source of humour to the facetious) and when she was told she burst into a long, +shrill wail of misery. Her mother said outright: +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how they’re going to feed ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe the Lord’ll see fit to take ’em to +’imself,” said the midwife. +</p> + +<p> +Philip caught sight of the husband’s face as he looked at the tiny pair +lying side by side, and there was a ferocious sullenness in it which startled +him. He felt in the family assembled there a hideous resentment against those +poor atoms who had come into the world unwished for; and he had a suspicion +that if he did not speak firmly an ‘accident’ would occur. +Accidents occurred often; mothers ‘overlay’ their babies, and +perhaps errors of diet were not always the result of carelessness. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall come every day,” he said. “I warn you that if +anything happens to them there’ll have to be an inquest.” +</p> + +<p> +The father made no reply, but he gave Philip a scowl. There was murder in his +soul. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless their little ’earts,” said the grandmother, +“what should ’appen to them?” +</p> + +<p> +The great difficulty was to keep the mothers in bed for ten days, which was the +minimum upon which the hospital practice insisted. It was awkward to look after +the family, no one would see to the children without payment, and the husband +tumbled because his tea was not right when he came home tired from his work and +hungry. Philip had heard that the poor helped one another, but woman after +woman complained to him that she could not get anyone in to clean up and see to +the children’s dinner without paying for the service, and she could not +afford to pay. By listening to the women as they talked and by chance remarks +from which he could deduce much that was left unsaid, Philip learned how little +there was in common between the poor and the classes above them. They did not +envy their betters, for the life was too different, and they had an ideal of +ease which made the existence of the middle-classes seem formal and stiff; +moreover, they had a certain contempt for them because they were soft and did +not work with their hands. The proud merely wished to be left alone, but the +majority looked upon the well-to-do as people to be exploited; they knew what +to say in order to get such advantages as the charitable put at their disposal, +and they accepted benefits as a right which came to them from the folly of +their superiors and their own astuteness. They bore the curate with +contemptuous indifference, but the district visitor excited their bitter +hatred. She came in and opened your windows without so much as a by your leave +or with your leave, ’and me with my bronchitis, enough to give me my +death of cold;’ she poked her nose into corners, and if she didn’t +say the place was dirty you saw what she thought right enough, ‘an’ +it’s all very well for them as ‘as servants, but I’d like to +see what she’d make of ’er room if she ’ad four children, and +’ad to do the cookin’, and mend their clothes, and wash +them.’ +</p> + +<p> +Philip discovered that the greatest tragedy of life to these people was not +separation or death, that was natural and the grief of it could be assuaged +with tears, but loss of work. He saw a man come home one afternoon, three days +after his wife’s confinement, and tell her he had been dismissed; he was +a builder and at that time work was slack; he stated the fact, and sat down to +his tea. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Jim,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The man ate stolidly some mess which had been stewing in a sauce-pan against +his coming; he stared at his plate; his wife looked at him two or three times, +with little startled glances, and then quite silently began to cry. The builder +was an uncouth little fellow with a rough, weather-beaten face and a long white +scar on his forehead; he had large, stubbly hands. Presently he pushed aside +his plate as if he must give up the effort to force himself to eat, and turned +a fixed gaze out of the window. The room was at the top of the house, at the +back, and one saw nothing but sullen clouds. The silence seemed heavy with +despair. Philip felt that there was nothing to be said, he could only go; and +as he walked away wearily, for he had been up most of the night, his heart was +filled with rage against the cruelty of the world. He knew the hopelessness of +the search for work and the desolation which is harder to bear than hunger. He +was thankful not to have to believe in God, for then such a condition of things +would be intolerable; one could reconcile oneself to existence only because it +was meaningless. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Philip that the people who spent their time in helping the poorer +classes erred because they sought to remedy things which would harass them if +themselves had to endure them without thinking that they did not in the least +disturb those who were used to them. The poor did not want large airy rooms; +they suffered from cold, for their food was not nourishing and their +circulation bad; space gave them a feeling of chilliness, and they wanted to +burn as little coal as need be; there was no hardship for several to sleep in +one room, they preferred it; they were never alone for a moment, from the time +they were born to the time they died, and loneliness oppressed them; they +enjoyed the promiscuity in which they dwelt, and the constant noise of their +surroundings pressed upon their ears unnoticed. They did not feel the need of +taking a bath constantly, and Philip often heard them speak with indignation of +the necessity to do so with which they were faced on entering the hospital: it +was both an affront and a discomfort. They wanted chiefly to be left alone; +then if the man was in regular work life went easily and was not without its +pleasures: there was plenty of time for gossip, after the day’s work a +glass of beer was very good to drink, the streets were a constant source of +entertainment, if you wanted to read there was Reynolds’ or The News of +the World; ‘but there, you couldn’t make out ’ow the time did +fly, the truth was and that’s a fact, you was a rare one for reading when +you was a girl, but what with one thing and another you didn’t get no +time now not even to read the paper.’ +</p> + +<p> +The usual practice was to pay three visits after a confinement, and one Sunday +Philip went to see a patient at the dinner hour. She was up for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t stay in bed no longer, I really couldn’t. +I’m not one for idling, and it gives me the fidgets to be there and do +nothing all day long, so I said to ’Erb, I’m just going to get up +and cook your dinner for you.” +</p> + +<p> +’Erb was sitting at table with his knife and fork already in his hands. +He was a young man, with an open face and blue eyes. He was earning good money, +and as things went the couple were in easy circumstances. They had only been +married a few months, and were both delighted with the rosy boy who lay in the +cradle at the foot of the bed. There was a savoury smell of beefsteak in the +room and Philip’s eyes turned to the range. +</p> + +<p> +“I was just going to dish up this minute,” said the woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Fire away,” said Philip. “I’ll just have a look at the +son and heir and then I’ll take myself off.” +</p> + +<p> +Husband and wife laughed at Philip’s expression, and ’Erb getting +up went over with Philip to the cradle. He looked at his baby proudly. +</p> + +<p> +“There doesn’t seem much wrong with him, does there?” said +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He took up his hat, and by this time ’Erb’s wife had dished up the +beefsteak and put on the table a plate of green peas. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going to have a nice dinner,” smiled Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s only in of a Sunday and I like to ’ave something +special for him, so as he shall miss his ’ome when he’s out at +work.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’d be above sittin’ down and ’avin’ +a bit of dinner with us?” said ’Erb. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’Erb,” said his wife, in a shocked tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Not if you ask me,” answered Philip, with his attractive smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s what I call friendly, I knew ’e wouldn’t +take offence, Polly. Just get another plate, my girl.” +</p> + +<p> +Polly was flustered, and she thought ’Erb a regular caution, you never +knew what ideas ’e’d get in ’is ’ead next; but she got +a plate and wiped it quickly with her apron, then took a new knife and fork +from the chest of drawers, where her best cutlery rested among her best +clothes. There was a jug of stout on the table, and ’Erb poured Philip +out a glass. He wanted to give him the lion’s share of the beefsteak, but +Philip insisted that they should share alike. It was a sunny room with two +windows that reached to the floor; it had been the parlour of a house which at +one time was if not fashionable at least respectable: it might have been +inhabited fifty years before by a well-to-do tradesman or an officer on half +pay. ’Erb had been a football player before he married, and there were +photographs on the wall of various teams in self-conscious attitudes, with +neatly plastered hair, the captain seated proudly in the middle holding a cup. +There were other signs of prosperity: photographs of the relations of +’Erb and his wife in Sunday clothes; on the chimney-piece an elaborate +arrangement of shells stuck on a miniature rock; and on each side mugs, +‘A present from Southend’ in Gothic letters, with pictures of a +pier and a parade on them. ’Erb was something of a character; he was a +non-union man and expressed himself with indignation at the efforts of the +union to force him to join. The union wasn’t no good to him, he never +found no difficulty in getting work, and there was good wages for anyone as +’ad a head on his shoulders and wasn’t above puttin’ +’is ’and to anything as come ’is way. Polly was timorous. If +she was ’im she’d join the union, the last time there was a strike +she was expectin’ ’im to be brought back in an ambulance every time +he went out. She turned to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s that obstinate, there’s no doing anything with +’im.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what I say is, it’s a free country, and I won’t be +dictated to.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good saying it’s a free country,” said Polly, +“that won’t prevent ’em bashin’ your ’ead in if +they get the chanst.” +</p> + +<p> +When they had finished Philip passed his pouch over to ’Erb and they lit +their pipes; then he got up, for a ‘call’ might be waiting for him +at his rooms, and shook hands. He saw that it had given them pleasure that he +shared their meal, and they saw that he had thoroughly enjoyed it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, good-bye, sir,” said ’Erb, “and I ’ope we +shall ’ave as nice a doctor next time the missus disgraces +’erself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on with you, ’Erb,” she retorted. “’Ow +d’you know there’s going to be a next time?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXIV</h2> + +<p> +The three weeks which the appointment lasted drew to an end. Philip had +attended sixty-two cases, and he was tired out. When he came home about ten +o’clock on his last night he hoped with all his heart that he would not +be called out again. He had not had a whole night’s rest for ten days. +The case which he had just come from was horrible. He had been fetched by a +huge, burly man, the worse for liquor, and taken to a room in an evil-smelling +court, which was filthier than any he had seen: it was a tiny attic; most of +the space was taken up by a wooden bed, with a canopy of dirty red hangings, +and the ceiling was so low that Philip could touch it with the tips of his +fingers; with the solitary candle that afforded what light there was he went +over it, frizzling up the bugs that crawled upon it. The woman was a blowsy +creature of middle age, who had had a long succession of still-born children. +It was a story that Philip was not unaccustomed to: the husband had been a +soldier in India; the legislation forced upon that country by the prudery of +the English public had given a free run to the most distressing of all +diseases; the innocent suffered. Yawning, Philip undressed and took a bath, +then shook his clothes over the water and watched the animals that fell out +wriggling. He was just going to get into bed when there was a knock at the +door, and the hospital porter brought him a card. +</p> + +<p> +“Curse you,” said Philip. “You’re the last person I +wanted to see tonight. Who’s brought it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it’s the ’usband, sir. Shall I tell him to +wait?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked at the address, saw that the street was familiar to him, and told +the porter that he would find his own way. He dressed himself and in five +minutes, with his black bag in his hand, stepped into the street. A man, whom +he could not see in the darkness, came up to him, and said he was the husband. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d better wait, sir,” he said. “It’s +a pretty rough neighbour’ood, and them not knowing who you was.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless your heart, they all know the doctor, I’ve been in some +damned sight rougher places than Waver Street.” +</p> + +<p> +It was quite true. The black bag was a passport through wretched alleys and +down foul-smelling courts into which a policeman was not ready to venture by +himself. Once or twice a little group of men had looked at Philip curiously as +he passed; he heard a mutter of observations and then one say: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the ’orspital doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +As he went by one or two of them said: “Good-night, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall ’ave to step out if you don’t mind, sir,” +said the man who accompanied him now. “They told me there was no time to +lose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you leave it so late?” asked Philip, as he quickened his +pace. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at the fellow as they passed a lamp-post. +</p> + +<p> +“You look awfully young,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m turned eighteen, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +He was fair, and he had not a hair on his face, he looked no more than a boy; +he was short, but thick set. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re young to be married,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“We ’ad to.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much d’you earn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sixteen, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Sixteen shillings a week was not much to keep a wife and child on. The room the +couple lived in showed that their poverty was extreme. It was a fair size, but +it looked quite large, since there was hardly any furniture in it; there was no +carpet on the floor; there were no pictures on the walls; and most rooms had +something, photographs or supplements in cheap frames from the Christmas +numbers of the illustrated papers. The patient lay on a little iron bed of the +cheapest sort. It startled Philip to see how young she was. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, she can’t be more than sixteen,” he said to the +woman who had come in to ‘see her through.’ +</p> + +<p> +She had given her age as eighteen on the card, but when they were very young +they often put on a year or two. Also she was pretty, which was rare in those +classes in which the constitution has been undermined by bad food, bad air, and +unhealthy occupations; she had delicate features and large blue eyes, and a +mass of dark hair done in the elaborate fashion of the coster girl. She and her +husband were very nervous. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better wait outside, so as to be at hand if I want +you,” Philip said to him. +</p> + +<p> +Now that he saw him better Philip was surprised again at his boyish air: you +felt that he should be larking in the street with the other lads instead of +waiting anxiously for the birth of a child. The hours passed, and it was not +till nearly two that the baby was born. Everything seemed to be going +satisfactorily; the husband was called in, and it touched Philip to see the +awkward, shy way in which he kissed his wife; Philip packed up his things. +Before going he felt once more his patient’s pulse. +</p> + +<p> +“Hulloa!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her quickly: something had happened. In cases of emergency the S. +O. C.—senior obstetric clerk—had to be sent for; he was a qualified +man, and the ‘district’ was in his charge. Philip scribbled a note, +and giving it to the husband, told him to run with it to the hospital; he bade +him hurry, for his wife was in a dangerous state. The man set off. Philip +waited anxiously; he knew the woman was bleeding to death; he was afraid she +would die before his chief arrived; he took what steps he could. He hoped +fervently that the S. O. C. would not have been called elsewhere. The minutes +were interminable. He came at last, and, while he examined the patient, in a +low voice asked Philip questions. Philip saw by his face that he thought the +case very grave. His name was Chandler. He was a tall man of few words, with a +long nose and a thin face much lined for his age. He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“It was hopeless from the beginning. Where’s the husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told him to wait on the stairs,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better bring him in.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip opened the door and called him. He was sitting in the dark on the first +step of the flight that led to the next floor. He came up to the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s internal bleeding. It’s impossible to stop +it.” The S. O. C. hesitated a moment, and because it was a painful thing +to say he forced his voice to become brusque. “She’s dying.” +</p> + +<p> +The man did not say a word; he stopped quite still, looking at his wife, who +lay, pale and unconscious, on the bed. It was the midwife who spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“The gentlemen ’ave done all they could, ’Arry,” she +said. “I saw what was comin’ from the first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up,” said Chandler. +</p> + +<p> +There were no curtains on the windows, and gradually the night seemed to +lighten; it was not yet the dawn, but the dawn was at hand. Chandler was +keeping the woman alive by all the means in his power, but life was slipping +away from her, and suddenly she died. The boy who was her husband stood at the +end of the cheap iron bed with his hands resting on the rail; he did not speak; +but he looked very pale and once or twice Chandler gave him an uneasy glance, +thinking he was going to faint: his lips were gray. The midwife sobbed noisily, +but he took no notice of her. His eyes were fixed upon his wife, and in them +was an utter bewilderment. He reminded you of a dog whipped for something he +did not know was wrong. When Chandler and Philip had gathered together their +things Chandler turned to the husband. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better lie down for a bit. I expect you’re about done +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nowhere for me to lie down, sir,” he answered, and +there was in his voice a humbleness which was very distressing. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know anyone in the house who’ll give you a +shakedown?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“They only moved in last week,” said the midwife. “They +don’t know nobody yet.” +</p> + +<p> +Chandler hesitated a moment awkwardly, then he went up to the man and said: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry this has happened.” +</p> + +<p> +He held out his hand and the man, with an instinctive glance at his own to see +if it was clean, shook it. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shook hands with him too. Chandler told the midwife to come and fetch +the certificate in the morning. They left the house and walked along together +in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“It upsets one a bit at first, doesn’t it?” said Chandler at +last. +</p> + +<p> +“A bit,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“If you like I’ll tell the porter not to bring you any more calls +tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m off duty at eight in the morning in any case.” +</p> + +<p> +“How many cases have you had?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sixty-three.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. You’ll get your certificate then.” +</p> + +<p> +They arrived at the hospital, and the S. O. C. went in to see if anyone wanted +him. Philip walked on. It had been very hot all the day before, and even now in +the early morning there was a balminess in the air. The street was very still. +Philip did not feel inclined to go to bed. It was the end of his work and he +need not hurry. He strolled along, glad of the fresh air and the silence; he +thought that he would go on to the bridge and look at day break on the river. A +policeman at the corner bade him good-morning. He knew who Philip was from his +bag. +</p> + +<p> +“Out late tonight, sir,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip nodded and passed. He leaned against the parapet and looked towards the +morning. At that hour the great city was like a city of the dead. The sky was +cloudless, but the stars were dim at the approach of day; there was a light +mist on the river, and the great buildings on the north side were like palaces +in an enchanted island. A group of barges was moored in midstream. It was all +of an unearthly violet, troubling somehow and awe-inspiring; but quickly +everything grew pale, and cold, and gray. Then the sun rose, a ray of yellow +gold stole across the sky, and the sky was iridescent. Philip could not get out +of his eyes the dead girl lying on the bed, wan and white, and the boy who +stood at the end of it like a stricken beast. The bareness of the squalid room +made the pain of it more poignant. It was cruel that a stupid chance should +have cut off her life when she was just entering upon it; but in the very +moment of saying this to himself, Philip thought of the life which had been in +store for her, the bearing of children, the dreary fight with poverty, the +youth broken by toil and deprivation into a slatternly middle age—he saw +the pretty face grow thin and white, the hair grow scanty, the pretty hands, +worn down brutally by work, become like the claws of an old animal—then, +when the man was past his prime, the difficulty of getting jobs, the small +wages he had to take; and the inevitable, abject penury of the end: she might +be energetic, thrifty, industrious, it would not have saved her; in the end was +the workhouse or subsistence on the charity of her children. Who could pity her +because she had died when life offered so little? +</p> + +<p> +But pity was inane. Philip felt it was not that which these people needed. They +did not pity themselves. They accepted their fate. It was the natural order of +things. Otherwise, good heavens! otherwise they would swarm over the river in +their multitude to the side where those great buildings were, secure and +stately, and they would pillage, burn, and sack. But the day, tender and pale, +had broken now, and the mist was tenuous; it bathed everything in a soft +radiance; and the Thames was gray, rosy, and green; gray like mother-of-pearl +and green like the heart of a yellow rose. The wharfs and store-houses of the +Surrey Side were massed in disorderly loveliness. The scene was so exquisite +that Philip’s heart beat passionately. He was overwhelmed by the beauty +of the world. Beside that nothing seemed to matter. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXV</h2> + +<p> +Philip spent the few weeks that remained before the beginning of the winter +session in the out-patients’ department, and in October settled down to +regular work. He had been away from the hospital for so long that he found +himself very largely among new people; the men of different years had little to +do with one another, and his contemporaries were now mostly qualified: some had +left to take up assistantships or posts in country hospitals and infirmaries, +and some held appointments at St. Luke’s. The two years during which his +mind had lain fallow had refreshed him, he fancied, and he was able now to work +with energy. +</p> + +<p> +The Athelnys were delighted with his change of fortune. He had kept aside a few +things from the sale of his uncle’s effects and gave them all presents. +He gave Sally a gold chain that had belonged to his aunt. She was now grown up. +She was apprenticed to a dressmaker and set out every morning at eight to work +all day in a shop in Regent Street. Sally had frank blue eyes, a broad brow, +and plentiful shining hair; she was buxom, with broad hips and full breasts; +and her father, who was fond of discussing her appearance, warned her +constantly that she must not grow fat. She attracted because she was healthy, +animal, and feminine. She had many admirers, but they left her unmoved; she +gave one the impression that she looked upon love-making as nonsense; and it +was easy to imagine that young men found her unapproachable. Sally was old for +her years: she had been used to help her mother in the household work and in +the care of the children, so that she had acquired a managing air, which made +her mother say that Sally was a bit too fond of having things her own way. She +did not speak very much, but as she grew older she seemed to be acquiring a +quiet sense of humour, and sometimes uttered a remark which suggested that +beneath her impassive exterior she was quietly bubbling with amusement at her +fellow-creatures. Philip found that with her he never got on the terms of +affectionate intimacy upon which he was with the rest of Athelny’s huge +family. Now and then her indifference slightly irritated him. There was +something enigmatic in her. +</p> + +<p> +When Philip gave her the necklace Athelny in his boisterous way insisted that +she must kiss him; but Sally reddened and drew back. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not going to,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ungrateful hussy!” cried Athelny. “Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like being kissed by men,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip saw her embarrassment, and, amused, turned Athelny’s attention to +something else. That was never a very difficult thing to do. But evidently her +mother spoke of the matter later, for next time Philip came she took the +opportunity when they were alone for a couple of minutes to refer to it. +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t think it disagreeable of me last week when I +wouldn’t kiss you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit,” he laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not because I wasn’t grateful.” She blushed a +little as she uttered the formal phrase which she had prepared. “I shall +always value the necklace, and it was very kind of you to give it me.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip found it always a little difficult to talk to her. She did all that she +had to do very competently, but seemed to feel no need of conversation; yet +there was nothing unsociable in her. One Sunday afternoon when Athelny and his +wife had gone out together, and Philip, treated as one of the family, sat +reading in the parlour, Sally came in and sat by the window to sew. The +girls’ clothes were made at home and Sally could not afford to spend +Sundays in idleness. Philip thought she wished to talk and put down his book. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on reading,” she said. “I only thought as you were alone +I’d come and sit with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re the most silent person I’ve ever struck,” said +Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t want another one who’s talkative in this +house,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +There was no irony in her tone: she was merely stating a fact. But it suggested +to Philip that she measured her father, alas, no longer the hero he was to her +childhood, and in her mind joined together his entertaining conversation and +the thriftlessness which often brought difficulties into their life; she +compared his rhetoric with her mother’s practical common sense; and +though the liveliness of her father amused her she was perhaps sometimes a +little impatient with it. Philip looked at her as she bent over her work; she +was healthy, strong, and normal; it must be odd to see her among the other +girls in the shop with their flat chests and anaemic faces. Mildred suffered +from anaemia. +</p> + +<p> +After a time it appeared that Sally had a suitor. She went out occasionally +with friends she had made in the work-room, and had met a young man, an +electrical engineer in a very good way of business, who was a most eligible +person. One day she told her mother that he had asked her to marry him. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you say?” said her mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I told him I wasn’t over-anxious to marry anyone just yet +awhile.” She paused a little as was her habit between observations. +“He took on so that I said he might come to tea on Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +It was an occasion that thoroughly appealed to Athelny. He rehearsed all the +afternoon how he should play the heavy father for the young man’s +edification till he reduced his children to helpless giggling. Just before he +was due Athelny routed out an Egyptian tarboosh and insisted on putting it on. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on with you, Athelny,” said his wife, who was in her best, +which was of black velvet, and, since she was growing stouter every year, very +tight for her. “You’ll spoil the girl’s chances.” +</p> + +<p> +She tried to pull it off, but the little man skipped nimbly out of her way. +</p> + +<p> +“Unhand me, woman. Nothing will induce me to take it off. This young man +must be shown at once that it is no ordinary family he is preparing to +enter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him keep it on, mother,” said Sally, in her even, indifferent +fashion. “If Mr. Donaldson doesn’t take it the way it’s meant +he can take himself off, and good riddance.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought it was a severe ordeal that the young man was being exposed to, +since Athelny, in his brown velvet jacket, flowing black tie, and red tarboosh, +was a startling spectacle for an innocent electrical engineer. When he came he +was greeted by his host with the proud courtesy of a Spanish grandee and by +Mrs. Athelny in an altogether homely and natural fashion. They sat down at the +old ironing-table in the high-backed monkish chairs, and Mrs. Athelny poured +tea out of a lustre teapot which gave a note of England and the country-side to +the festivity. She had made little cakes with her own hand, and on the table +was home-made jam. It was a farm-house tea, and to Philip very quaint and +charming in that Jacobean house. Athelny for some fantastic reason took it into +his head to discourse upon Byzantine history; he had been reading the later +volumes of the Decline and Fall; and, his forefinger dramatically extended, he +poured into the astonished ears of the suitor scandalous stories about Theodora +and Irene. He addressed himself directly to his guest with a torrent of +rhodomontade; and the young man, reduced to helpless silence and shy, nodded +his head at intervals to show that he took an intelligent interest. Mrs. +Athelny paid no attention to Thorpe’s conversation, but interrupted now +and then to offer the young man more tea or to press upon him cake and jam. +Philip watched Sally; she sat with downcast eyes, calm, silent, and observant; +and her long eye-lashes cast a pretty shadow on her cheek. You could not tell +whether she was amused at the scene or if she cared for the young man. She was +inscrutable. But one thing was certain: the electrical engineer was +good-looking, fair and clean-shaven, with pleasant, regular features, and an +honest face; he was tall and well-made. Philip could not help thinking he would +make an excellent mate for her, and he felt a pang of envy for the happiness +which he fancied was in store for them. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the suitor said he thought it was about time he was getting along. +Sally rose to her feet without a word and accompanied him to the door. When she +came back her father burst out: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Sally, we think your young man very nice. We are prepared to +welcome him into our family. Let the banns be called and I will compose a +nuptial song.” +</p> + +<p> +Sally set about clearing away the tea-things. She did not answer. Suddenly she +shot a swift glance at Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you think of him, Mr. Philip?” +</p> + +<p> +She had always refused to call him Uncle Phil as the other children did, and +would not call him Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’d make an awfully handsome pair.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him quickly once more, and then with a slight blush went on with +her business. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought him a very nice civil-spoken young fellow,” said Mrs. +Athelny, “and I think he’s just the sort to make any girl +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +Sally did not reply for a minute or two, and Philip looked at her curiously: it +might be thought that she was meditating upon what her mother had said, and on +the other hand she might be thinking of the man in the moon. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you answer when you’re spoken to, Sally?” +remarked her mother, a little irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought he was a silly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to have him then?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how much more you want,” said Mrs. Athelny, and +it was quite clear now that she was put out. “He’s a very decent +young fellow and he can afford to give you a thorough good home. We’ve +got quite enough to feed here without you. If you get a chance like that +it’s wicked not to take it. And I daresay you’d be able to have a +girl to do the rough work.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had never before heard Mrs. Athelny refer so directly to the +difficulties of her life. He saw how important it was that each child should be +provided for. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good your carrying on, mother,” said Sally in her +quiet way. “I’m not going to marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’re a very hard-hearted, cruel, selfish girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you want me to earn my own living, mother, I can always go into +service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be so silly, you know your father would never let you do +that.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip caught Sally’s eye, and he thought there was in it a glimmer of +amusement. He wondered what there had been in the conversation to touch her +sense of humour. She was an odd girl. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXVI</h2> + +<p> +During his last year at St. Luke’s Philip had to work hard. He was +contented with life. He found it very comfortable to be heart-free and to have +enough money for his needs. He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: +he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it. He knew that the lack made +a man petty, mean, grasping; it distorted his character and caused him to view +the world from a vulgar angle; when you had to consider every penny, money +became of grotesque importance: you needed a competency to rate it at its +proper value. He lived a solitary life, seeing no one except the Athelnys, but +he was not lonely; he busied himself with plans for the future, and sometimes +he thought of the past. His recollection dwelt now and then on old friends, but +he made no effort to see them. He would have liked to know what was become of +Norah Nesbit; she was Norah something else now, but he could not remember the +name of the man she was going to marry; he was glad to have known her: she was +a good and a brave soul. One evening about half past eleven he saw Lawson, +walking along Piccadilly; he was in evening clothes and might be supposed to be +coming back from a theatre. Philip gave way to a sudden impulse and quickly +turned down a side street. He had not seen him for two years and felt that he +could not now take up again the interrupted friendship. He and Lawson had +nothing more to say to one another. Philip was no longer interested in art; it +seemed to him that he was able to enjoy beauty with greater force than when he +was a boy; but art appeared to him unimportant. He was occupied with the +forming of a pattern out of the manifold chaos of life, and the materials with +which he worked seemed to make preoccupation with pigments and words very +trivial. Lawson had served his turn. Philip’s friendship with him had +been a motive in the design he was elaborating: it was merely sentimental to +ignore the fact that the painter was of no further interest to him. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes Philip thought of Mildred. He avoided deliberately the streets in +which there was a chance of seeing her; but occasionally some feeling, perhaps +curiosity, perhaps something deeper which he would not acknowledge, made him +wander about Piccadilly and Regent Street during the hours when she might be +expected to be there. He did not know then whether he wished to see her or +dreaded it. Once he saw a back which reminded him of hers, and for a moment he +thought it was she; it gave him a curious sensation: it was a strange sharp +pain in his heart, there was fear in it and a sickening dismay; and when he +hurried on and found that he was mistaken he did not know whether it was relief +that he experienced or disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +At the beginning of August Philip passed his surgery, his last examination, and +received his diploma. It was seven years since he had entered St. Luke’s +Hospital. He was nearly thirty. He walked down the stairs of the Royal College +of Surgeons with the roll in his hand which qualified him to practice, and his +heart beat with satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I’m really going to begin life,” he thought. +</p> + +<p> +Next day he went to the secretary’s office to put his name down for one +of the hospital appointments. The secretary was a pleasant little man with a +black beard, whom Philip had always found very affable. He congratulated him on +his success, and then said: +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you wouldn’t like to do a locum for a month on the South +coast? Three guineas a week with board and lodging.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t mind,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s at Farnley, in Dorsetshire. Doctor South. You’d have to +go down at once; his assistant has developed mumps. I believe it’s a very +pleasant place.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something in the secretary’s manner that puzzled Philip. It was +a little doubtful. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the crab in it?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +The secretary hesitated a moment and laughed in a conciliating fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the fact is, I understand he’s rather a crusty, funny old +fellow. The agencies won’t send him anyone any more. He speaks his mind +very openly, and men don’t like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But d’you think he’ll be satisfied with a man who’s +only just qualified? After all I have no experience.” +</p> + +<p> +“He ought to be glad to get you,” said the secretary +diplomatically. +</p> + +<p> +Philip thought for a moment. He had nothing to do for the next few weeks, and +he was glad of the chance to earn a bit of money. He could put it aside for the +holiday in Spain which he had promised himself when he had finished his +appointment at St. Luke’s or, if they would not give him anything there, +at some other hospital. +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing is, you must go this afternoon. Will that suit you? If +so, I’ll send a wire at once.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip would have liked a few days to himself; but he had seen the Athelnys the +night before (he had gone at once to take them his good news) and there was +really no reason why he should not start immediately. He had little luggage to +pack. Soon after seven that evening he got out of the station at Farnley and +took a cab to Doctor South’s. It was a broad low stucco house, with a +Virginia creeper growing over it. He was shown into the consulting-room. An old +man was writing at a desk. He looked up as the maid ushered Philip in. He did +not get up, and he did not speak; he merely stared at Philip. Philip was taken +aback. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’re expecting me,” he said. “The secretary +of St. Luke’s wired to you this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I kept dinner back for half an hour. D’you want to wash?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Doctor South amused him by his odd manner. He got up now, and Philip saw that +he was a man of middle height, thin, with white hair cut very short and a long +mouth closed so tightly that he seemed to have no lips at all; he was +clean-shaven but for small white whiskers, and they increased the squareness of +face which his firm jaw gave him. He wore a brown tweed suit and a white stock. +His clothes hung loosely about him as though they had been made for a much +larger man. He looked like a respectable farmer of the middle of the nineteenth +century. He opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +“There is the dining-room,” he said, pointing to the door opposite. +“Your bed-room is the first door you come to when you get on the landing. +Come downstairs when you’re ready.” +</p> + +<p> +During dinner Philip knew that Doctor South was examining him, but he spoke +little, and Philip felt that he did not want to hear his assistant talk. +</p> + +<p> +“When were you qualified?” he asked suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you at a university?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Last year when my assistant took a holiday they sent me a ’Varsity +man. I told ’em not to do it again. Too damned gentlemanly for me.” +</p> + +<p> +There was another pause. The dinner was very simple and very good. Philip +preserved a sedate exterior, but in his heart he was bubbling over with +excitement. He was immensely elated at being engaged as a locum; it made him +feel extremely grown up; he had an insane desire to laugh at nothing in +particular; and the more he thought of his professional dignity the more he was +inclined to chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +But Doctor South broke suddenly into his thoughts. “How old are +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Getting on for thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +“How is it you’re only just qualified?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t go in for the medical till I was nearly twenty-three, and +I had to give it up for two years in the middle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Poverty.” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor South gave him an odd look and relapsed into silence. At the end of +dinner he got up from the table. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you know what sort of a practice this is?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” answered Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Mostly fishermen and their families. I have the Union and the +Seamen’s Hospital. I used to be alone here, but since they tried to make +this into a fashionable sea-side resort a man has set up on the cliff, and the +well-to-do people go to him. I only have those who can’t afford to pay +for a doctor at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip saw that the rivalry was a sore point with the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“You know that I have no experience,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“You none of you know anything.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked out of the room without another word and left Philip by himself. When +the maid came in to clear away she told Philip that Doctor South saw patients +from six till seven. Work for that night was over. Philip fetched a book from +his room, lit his pipe, and settled himself down to read. It was a great +comfort, since he had read nothing but medical books for the last few months. +At ten o’clock Doctor South came in and looked at him. Philip hated not +to have his feet up, and he had dragged up a chair for them. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem able to make yourself pretty comfortable,” said Doctor +South, with a grimness which would have disturbed Philip if he had not been in +such high spirits. +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s eyes twinkled as he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any objection?” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor South gave him a look, but did not reply directly. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that you’re reading?” +</p> + +<p> +“Peregrine Pickle. Smollett.” +</p> + +<p> +“I happen to know that Smollett wrote Peregrine Pickle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon. Medical men aren’t much interested in +literature, are they?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had put the book down on the table, and Doctor South took it up. It was +a volume of an edition which had belonged to the Vicar of Blackstable. It was a +thin book bound in faded morocco, with a copperplate engraving as a +frontispiece; the pages were musty with age and stained with mould. Philip, +without meaning to, started forward a little as Doctor South took the volume in +his hands, and a slight smile came into his eyes. Very little escaped the old +doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I amuse you?” he asked icily. +</p> + +<p> +“I see you’re fond of books. You can always tell by the way people +handle them.” +</p> + +<p> + Doctor South put down the novel immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“Breakfast at eight-thirty,” he said and left the room. +</p> + +<p> +“What a funny old fellow!” thought Philip. +</p> + +<p> +He soon discovered why Doctor South’s assistants found it difficult to +get on with him. In the first place, he set his face firmly against all the +discoveries of the last thirty years: he had no patience with the drugs which +became modish, were thought to work marvellous cures, and in a few years were +discarded; he had stock mixtures which he had brought from St. Luke’s +where he had been a student, and had used all his life; he found them just as +efficacious as anything that had come into fashion since. Philip was startled +at Doctor South’s suspicion of asepsis; he had accepted it in deference +to universal opinion; but he used the precautions which Philip had known +insisted upon so scrupulously at the hospital with the disdainful tolerance of +a man playing at soldiers with children. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen antiseptics come along and sweep everything before them, +and then I’ve seen asepsis take their place. Bunkum!” +</p> + +<p> +The young men who were sent down to him knew only hospital practice; and they +came with the unconcealed scorn for the General Practitioner which they had +absorbed in the air at the hospital; but they had seen only the complicated +cases which appeared in the wards; they knew how to treat an obscure disease of +the suprarenal bodies, but were helpless when consulted for a cold in the head. +Their knowledge was theoretical and their self-assurance unbounded. Doctor +South watched them with tightened lips; he took a savage pleasure in showing +them how great was their ignorance and how unjustified their conceit. It was a +poor practice, of fishing folk, and the doctor made up his own prescriptions. +Doctor South asked his assistant how he expected to make both ends meet if he +gave a fisherman with a stomach-ache a mixture consisting of half a dozen +expensive drugs. He complained too that the young medical men were uneducated: +their reading consisted of The Sporting Times and The British Medical Journal; +they could neither write a legible hand nor spell correctly. For two or three +days Doctor South watched Philip closely, ready to fall on him with acid +sarcasm if he gave him the opportunity; and Philip, aware of this, went about +his work with a quiet sense of amusement. He was pleased with the change of +occupation. He liked the feeling of independence and of responsibility. All +sorts of people came to the consulting-room. He was gratified because he seemed +able to inspire his patients with confidence; and it was entertaining to watch +the process of cure which at a hospital necessarily could be watched only at +distant intervals. His rounds took him into low-roofed cottages in which were +fishing tackle and sails and here and there mementoes of deep-sea travelling, a +lacquer box from Japan, spears and oars from Melanesia, or daggers from the +bazaars of Stamboul; there was an air of romance in the stuffy little rooms, +and the salt of the sea gave them a bitter freshness. Philip liked to talk to +the sailor-men, and when they found that he was not supercilious they told him +long yarns of the distant journeys of their youth. +</p> + +<p> +Once or twice he made a mistake in diagnosis: (he had never seen a case of +measles before, and when he was confronted with the rash took it for an obscure +disease of the skin;) and once or twice his ideas of treatment differed from +Doctor South’s. The first time this happened Doctor South attacked him +with savage irony; but Philip took it with good humour; he had some gift for +repartee, and he made one or two answers which caused Doctor South to stop and +look at him curiously. Philip’s face was grave, but his eyes were +twinkling. The old gentleman could not avoid the impression that Philip was +chaffing him. He was used to being disliked and feared by his assistants, and +this was a new experience. He had half a mind to fly into a passion and pack +Philip off by the next train, he had done that before with his assistants; but +he had an uneasy feeling that Philip then would simply laugh at him outright; +and suddenly he felt amused. His mouth formed itself into a smile against his +will, and he turned away. In a little while he grew conscious that Philip was +amusing himself systematically at his expense. He was taken aback at first and +then diverted. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn his impudence,” he chuckled to himself. “Damn his +impudence.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXVII</h2> + +<p> +Philip had written to Athelny to tell him that he was doing a locum in +Dorsetshire and in due course received an answer from him. It was written in +the formal manner he affected, studded with pompous epithets as a Persian +diadem was studded with precious stones; and in the beautiful hand, like black +letter and as difficult to read, upon which he prided himself. He suggested +that Philip should join him and his family in the Kentish hop-field to which he +went every year; and to persuade him said various beautiful and complicated +things about Philip’s soul and the winding tendrils of the hops. Philip +replied at once that he would come on the first day he was free. Though not +born there, he had a peculiar affection for the Isle of Thanet, and he was +fired with enthusiasm at the thought of spending a fortnight so close to the +earth and amid conditions which needed only a blue sky to be as idyllic as the +olive groves of Arcady. +</p> + +<p> +The four weeks of his engagement at Farnley passed quickly. On the cliff a new +town was springing up, with red brick villas round golf links, and a large +hotel had recently been opened to cater for the summer visitors; but Philip +went there seldom. Down below, by the harbour, the little stone houses of a +past century were clustered in a delightful confusion, and the narrow streets, +climbing down steeply, had an air of antiquity which appealed to the +imagination. By the water’s edge were neat cottages with trim, tiny +gardens in front of them; they were inhabited by retired captains in the +merchant service, and by mothers or widows of men who had gained their living +by the sea; and they had an appearance which was quaint and peaceful. In the +little harbour came tramps from Spain and the Levant, ships of small tonnage; +and now and then a windjammer was borne in by the winds of romance. It reminded +Philip of the dirty little harbour with its colliers at Blackstable, and he +thought that there he had first acquired the desire, which was now an +obsession, for Eastern lands and sunlit islands in a tropic sea. But here you +felt yourself closer to the wide, deep ocean than on the shore of that North +Sea which seemed always circumscribed; here you could draw a long breath as you +looked out upon the even vastness; and the west wind, the dear soft salt wind +of England, uplifted the heart and at the same time melted it to tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +One evening, when Philip had reached his last week with Doctor South, a child +came to the surgery door while the old doctor and Philip were making up +prescriptions. It was a little ragged girl with a dirty face and bare feet. +Philip opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, sir, will you come to Mrs. Fletcher’s in Ivy Lane at +once?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with Mrs. Fletcher?” called out Doctor +South in his rasping voice. +</p> + +<p> +The child took no notice of him, but addressed herself again to Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, sir, her little boy’s had an accident and will you come at +once?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell Mrs. Fletcher I’m coming,” called out Doctor South. +</p> + +<p> +The little girl hesitated for a moment, and putting a dirty finger in a dirty +mouth stood still and looked at Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Kid?” said Philip, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, sir, Mrs. Fletcher says, will the new doctor come?” There +was a sound in the dispensary and Doctor South came out into the passage. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t Mrs. Fletcher satisfied with me?” he barked. +“I’ve attended Mrs. Fletcher since she was born. Why aren’t I +good enough to attend her filthy brat?” +</p> + +<p> +The little girl looked for a moment as though she were going to cry, then she +thought better of it; she put out her tongue deliberately at Doctor South, and, +before he could recover from his astonishment, bolted off as fast as she could +run. Philip saw that the old gentleman was annoyed. +</p> + +<p> +“You look rather fagged, and it’s a goodish way to Ivy Lane,” +he said, by way of giving him an excuse not to go himself. +</p> + +<p> +Doctor South gave a low snarl. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a damned sight nearer for a man who’s got the use of +both legs than for a man who’s only got one and a half.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip reddened and stood silent for a while. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you wish me to go or will you go yourself?” he said at last +frigidly. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good of my going? They want you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip took up his hat and went to see the patient. It was hard upon eight +o’clock when he came back. Doctor South was standing in the dining-room +with his back to the fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been a long time,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry. Why didn’t you start dinner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I chose to wait. Have you been all this while at Mrs. +Fletcher’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m afraid I haven’t. I stopped to look at the sunset on +my way back, and I didn’t think of the time.” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor South did not reply, and the servant brought in some grilled sprats. +Philip ate them with an excellent appetite. Suddenly Doctor South shot a +question at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you look at the sunset?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip answered with his mouth full. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I was happy.” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor South gave him an odd look, and the shadow of a smile flickered across +his old, tired face. They ate the rest of the dinner in silence; but when the +maid had given them the port and left the room, the old man leaned back and +fixed his sharp eyes on Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“It stung you up a bit when I spoke of your game leg, young +fellow?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“People always do, directly or indirectly, when they get angry with +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose they know it’s your weak point.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip faced him and looked at him steadily. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very glad to have discovered it?” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor did not answer, but he gave a chuckle of bitter mirth. They sat for +a while staring at one another. Then Doctor South surprised Philip extremely. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you stay here and I’ll get rid of that damned fool +with his mumps?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very kind of you, but I hope to get an appointment at the +hospital in the autumn. It’ll help me so much in getting other work +later.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m offering you a partnership,” said Doctor South grumpily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked Philip, with surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“They seem to like you down here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think that was a fact which altogether met with your +approval,” Philip said drily. +</p> + +<p> +“D’you suppose that after forty years’ practice I care a +twopenny damn whether people prefer my assistant to me? No, my friend. +There’s no sentiment between my patients and me. I don’t expect +gratitude from them, I expect them to pay my fees. Well, what d’you say +to it?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip made no reply, not because he was thinking over the proposal, but +because he was astonished. It was evidently very unusual for someone to offer a +partnership to a newly qualified man; and he realised with wonder that, +although nothing would induce him to say so, Doctor South had taken a fancy to +him. He thought how amused the secretary at St. Luke’s would be when he +told him. +</p> + +<p> +“The practice brings in about seven hundred a year. We can reckon out how +much your share would be worth, and you can pay me off by degrees. And when I +die you can succeed me. I think that’s better than knocking about +hospitals for two or three years, and then taking assistantships until you can +afford to set up for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip knew it was a chance that most people in his profession would jump at; +the profession was over-crowded, and half the men he knew would be thankful to +accept the certainty of even so modest a competence as that. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t,” he said. “It +means giving up everything I’ve aimed at for years. In one way and +another I’ve had a roughish time, but I always had that one hope before +me, to get qualified so that I might travel; and now, when I wake in the +morning, my bones simply ache to get off, I don’t mind where +particularly, but just away, to places I’ve never been to.” +</p> + +<p> +Now the goal seemed very near. He would have finished his appointment at St. +Luke’s by the middle of the following year, and then he would go to +Spain; he could afford to spend several months there, rambling up and down the +land which stood to him for romance; after that he would get a ship and go to +the East. Life was before him and time of no account. He could wander, for +years if he chose, in unfrequented places, amid strange peoples, where life was +led in strange ways. He did not know what he sought or what his journeys would +bring him; but he had a feeling that he would learn something new about life +and gain some clue to the mystery that he had solved only to find more +mysterious. And even if he found nothing he would allay the unrest which gnawed +at his heart. But Doctor South was showing him a great kindness, and it seemed +ungrateful to refuse his offer for no adequate reason; so in his shy way, +trying to appear as matter of fact as possible, he made some attempt to explain +why it was so important to him to carry out the plans he had cherished so +passionately. +</p> + +<p> +Doctor South listened quietly, and a gentle look came into his shrewd old eyes. +It seemed to Philip an added kindness that he did not press him to accept his +offer. Benevolence is often very peremptory. He appeared to look upon +Philip’s reasons as sound. Dropping the subject, he began to talk of his +own youth; he had been in the Royal Navy, and it was his long connection with +the sea that, when he retired, had made him settle at Farnley. He told Philip +of old days in the Pacific and of wild adventures in China. He had taken part +in an expedition against the head-hunters of Borneo and had known Samoa when it +was still an independent state. He had touched at coral islands. Philip +listened to him entranced. Little by little he told Philip about himself. +Doctor South was a widower, his wife had died thirty years before, and his +daughter had married a farmer in Rhodesia; he had quarrelled with him, and she +had not come to England for ten years. It was just as if he had never had wife +or child. He was very lonely. His gruffness was little more than a protection +which he wore to hide a complete disillusionment; and to Philip it seemed +tragic to see him just waiting for death, not impatiently, but rather with +loathing for it, hating old age and unable to resign himself to its +limitations, and yet with the feeling that death was the only solution of the +bitterness of his life. Philip crossed his path, and the natural affection +which long separation from his daughter had killed—she had taken her +husband’s part in the quarrel and her children he had never +seen—settled itself upon Philip. At first it made him angry, he told +himself it was a sign of dotage; but there was something in Philip that +attracted him, and he found himself smiling at him he knew not why. Philip did +not bore him. Once or twice he put his hand on his shoulder: it was as near a +caress as he had got since his daughter left England so many years before. When +the time came for Philip to go Doctor South accompanied him to the station: he +found himself unaccountably depressed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had a ripping time here,” said Philip. +“You’ve been awfully kind to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’re very glad to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve enjoyed myself here.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you want to get out into the world? Ah, you have youth.” He +hesitated a moment. “I want you to remember that if you change your mind +my offer still stands.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s awfully kind of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shook hands with him out of the carriage window, and the train steamed +out of the station. Philip thought of the fortnight he was going to spend in +the hop-field: he was happy at the idea of seeing his friends again, and he +rejoiced because the day was fine. But Doctor South walked slowly back to his +empty house. He felt very old and very lonely. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXVIII</h2> + +<p> +It was late in the evening when Philip arrived at Ferne. It was Mrs. +Athelny’s native village, and she had been accustomed from her childhood +to pick in the hop-field to which with her husband and her children she still +went every year. Like many Kentish folk her family had gone out regularly, glad +to earn a little money, but especially regarding the annual outing, looked +forward to for months, as the best of holidays. The work was not hard, it was +done in common, in the open air, and for the children it was a long, delightful +picnic; here the young men met the maidens; in the long evenings when work was +over they wandered about the lanes, making love; and the hopping season was +generally followed by weddings. They went out in carts with bedding, pots and +pans, chairs and tables; and Ferne while the hopping lasted was deserted. They +were very exclusive and would have resented the intrusion of foreigners, as +they called the people who came from London; they looked down upon them and +feared them too; they were a rough lot, and the respectable country folk did +not want to mix with them. In the old days the hoppers slept in barns, but ten +years ago a row of huts had been erected at the side of a meadow; and the +Athelnys, like many others, had the same hut every year. +</p> + +<p> +Athelny met Philip at the station in a cart he had borrowed from the +public-house at which he had got a room for Philip. It was a quarter of a mile +from the hop-field. They left his bag there and walked over to the meadow in +which were the huts. They were nothing more than a long, low shed, divided into +little rooms about twelve feet square. In front of each was a fire of sticks, +round which a family was grouped, eagerly watching the cooking of supper. The +sea-air and the sun had browned already the faces of Athelny’s children. +Mrs. Athelny seemed a different woman in her sun-bonnet: you felt that the long +years in the city had made no real difference to her; she was the country woman +born and bred, and you could see how much at home she found herself in the +country. She was frying bacon and at the same time keeping an eye on the +younger children, but she had a hearty handshake and a jolly smile for Philip. +Athelny was enthusiastic over the delights of a rural existence. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re starved for sun and light in the cities we live in. It +isn’t life, it’s a long imprisonment. Let us sell all we have, +Betty, and take a farm in the country.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can see you in the country,” she answered with good-humoured +scorn. “Why, the first rainy day we had in the winter you’d be +crying for London.” She turned to Philip. “Athelny’s always +like this when we come down here. Country, I like that! Why, he don’t +know a swede from a mangel-wurzel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Daddy was lazy today,” remarked Jane, with the frankness which +characterized her, “he didn’t fill one bin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m getting into practice, child, and tomorrow I shall fill more +bins than all of you put together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come and eat your supper, children,” said Mrs. Athelny. +“Where’s Sally?” +</p> + +<p> +“Here I am, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +She stepped out of their little hut, and the flames of the wood fire leaped up +and cast sharp colour upon her face. Of late Philip had only seen her in the +trim frocks she had taken to since she was at the dressmaker’s, and there +was something very charming in the print dress she wore now, loose and easy to +work in; the sleeves were tucked up and showed her strong, round arms. She too +had a sun-bonnet. +</p> + +<p> +“You look like a milkmaid in a fairy story,” said Philip, as he +shook hands with her. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s the belle of the hop-fields,” said Athelny. “My +word, if the Squire’s son sees you he’ll make you an offer of +marriage before you can say Jack Robinson.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Squire hasn’t got a son, father,” said Sally. +</p> + +<p> +She looked about for a place to sit down in, and Philip made room for her +beside him. She looked wonderful in the night lit by wood fires. She was like +some rural goddess, and you thought of those fresh, strong girls whom old +Herrick had praised in exquisite numbers. The supper was simple, bread and +butter, crisp bacon, tea for the children, and beer for Mr. and Mrs. Athelny +and Philip. Athelny, eating hungrily, praised loudly all he ate. He flung words +of scorn at Lucullus and piled invectives upon Brillat-Savarin. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s one thing one can say for you, Athelny,” said his +wife, “you do enjoy your food and no mistake!” +</p> + +<p> +“Cooked by your hand, my Betty,” he said, stretching out an +eloquent forefinger. +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt himself very comfortable. He looked happily at the line of fires, +with people grouped about them, and the colour of the flames against the night; +at the end of the meadow was a line of great elms, and above the starry sky. +The children talked and laughed, and Athelny, a child among them, made them +roar by his tricks and fancies. +</p> + +<p> +“They think a rare lot of Athelny down here,” said his wife. +“Why, Mrs. Bridges said to me, I don’t know what we should do +without Mr. Athelny now, she said. He’s always up to something, +he’s more like a schoolboy than the father of a family.” +</p> + +<p> +Sally sat in silence, but she attended to Philip’s wants in a thoughtful +fashion that charmed him. It was pleasant to have her beside him, and now and +then he glanced at her sunburned, healthy face. Once he caught her eyes, and +she smiled quietly. When supper was over Jane and a small brother were sent +down to a brook that ran at the bottom of the meadow to fetch a pail of water +for washing up. +</p> + +<p> +“You children, show your Uncle Philip where we sleep, and then you must +be thinking of going to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +Small hands seized Philip, and he was dragged towards the hut. He went in and +struck a match. There was no furniture in it; and beside a tin box, in which +clothes were kept, there was nothing but the beds; there were three of them, +one against each wall. Athelny followed Philip in and showed them proudly. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the stuff to sleep on,” he cried. “None of your +spring-mattresses and swansdown. I never sleep so soundly anywhere as here. YOU +will sleep between sheets. My dear fellow, I pity you from the bottom of my +soul.” +</p> + +<p> +The beds consisted of a thick layer of hopvine, on the top of which was a +coating of straw, and this was covered with a blanket. After a day in the open +air, with the aromatic scent of the hops all round them, the happy pickers +slept like tops. By nine o’clock all was quiet in the meadow and everyone +in bed but one or two men who still lingered in the public-house and would not +come back till it was closed at ten. Athelny walked there with Philip. But +before he went Mrs. Athelny said to him: +</p> + +<p> +“We breakfast about a quarter to six, but I daresay you won’t want +to get up as early as that. You see, we have to set to work at six.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he must get up early,” cried Athelny, “and he must +work like the rest of us. He’s got to earn his board. No work, no dinner, +my lad.” +</p> + +<p> +“The children go down to bathe before breakfast, and they can give you a +call on their way back. They pass The Jolly Sailor.” +</p> + +<p> +“If they’ll wake me I’ll come and bathe with them,” +said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +Jane and Harold and Edward shouted with delight at the prospect, and next +morning Philip was awakened out of a sound sleep by their bursting into his +room. The boys jumped on his bed, and he had to chase them out with his +slippers. He put on a coat and a pair of trousers and went down. The day had +only just broken, and there was a nip in the air; but the sky was cloudless, +and the sun was shining yellow. Sally, holding Connie’s hand, was +standing in the middle of the road, with a towel and a bathing-dress over her +arm. He saw now that her sun-bonnet was of the colour of lavender, and against +it her face, red and brown, was like an apple. She greeted him with her slow, +sweet smile, and he noticed suddenly that her teeth were small and regular and +very white. He wondered why they had never caught his attention before. +</p> + +<p> +“I was for letting you sleep on,” she said, “but they would +go up and wake you. I said you didn’t really want to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I did.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked down the road and then cut across the marshes. That way it was +under a mile to the sea. The water looked cold and gray, and Philip shivered at +the sight of it; but the others tore off their clothes and ran in shouting. +Sally did everything a little slowly, and she did not come into the water till +all the rest were splashing round Philip. Swimming was his only accomplishment; +he felt at home in the water; and soon he had them all imitating him as he +played at being a porpoise, and a drowning man, and a fat lady afraid of +wetting her hair. The bathe was uproarious, and it was necessary for Sally to +be very severe to induce them all to come out. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re as bad as any of them,” she said to Philip, in her +grave, maternal way, which was at once comic and touching. “They’re +not anything like so naughty when you’re not here.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked back, Sally with her bright hair streaming over one shoulder and +her sun-bonnet in her hand, but when they got to the huts Mrs. Athelny had +already started for the hop-garden. Athleny, in a pair of the oldest trousers +anyone had ever worn, his jacket buttoned up to show he had no shirt on, and in +a wide-brimmed soft hat, was frying kippers over a fire of sticks. He was +delighted with himself: he looked every inch a brigand. As soon as he saw the +party he began to shout the witches’ chorus from Macbeth over the odorous +kippers. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t dawdle over your breakfast or mother will be +angry,” he said, when they came up. +</p> + +<p> +And in a few minutes, Harold and Jane with pieces of bread and butter in their +hands, they sauntered through the meadow into the hop-field. They were the last +to leave. A hop-garden was one of the sights connected with Philip’s +boyhood and the oast-houses to him the most typical feature of the Kentish +scene. It was with no sense of strangeness, but as though he were at home, that +Philip followed Sally through the long lines of the hops. The sun was bright +now and cast a sharp shadow. Philip feasted his eyes on the richness of the +green leaves. The hops were yellowing, and to him they had the beauty and the +passion which poets in Sicily have found in the purple grape. As they walked +along Philip felt himself overwhelmed by the rich luxuriance. A sweet scent +arose from the fat Kentish soil, and the fitful September breeze was heavy with +the goodly perfume of the hops. Athelstan felt the exhilaration instinctively, +for he lifted up his voice and sang; it was the cracked voice of the boy of +fifteen, and Sally turned round. +</p> + +<p> +“You be quiet, Athelstan, or we shall have a thunderstorm.” +</p> + +<p> +In a moment they heard the hum of voices, and in a moment more came upon the +pickers. They were all hard at work, talking and laughing as they picked. They +sat on chairs, on stools, on boxes, with their baskets by their sides, and some +stood by the bin throwing the hops they picked straight into it. There were a +lot of children about and a good many babies, some in makeshift cradles, some +tucked up in a rug on the soft brown dry earth. The children picked a little +and played a great deal. The women worked busily, they had been pickers from +childhood, and they could pick twice as fast as foreigners from London. They +boasted about the number of bushels they had picked in a day, but they +complained you could not make money now as in former times: then they paid you +a shilling for five bushels, but now the rate was eight and even nine bushels +to the shilling. In the old days a good picker could earn enough in the season +to keep her for the rest of the year, but now there was nothing in it; you got +a holiday for nothing, and that was about all. Mrs. Hill had bought herself a +pianner out of what she made picking, so she said, but she was very near, one +wouldn’t like to be near like that, and most people thought it was only +what she said, if the truth was known perhaps it would be found that she had +put a bit of money from the savings bank towards it. +</p> + +<p> +The hoppers were divided into bin companies of ten pickers, not counting +children, and Athelny loudly boasted of the day when he would have a company +consisting entirely of his own family. Each company had a bin-man, whose duty +it was to supply it with strings of hops at their bins (the bin was a large +sack on a wooden frame, about seven feet high, and long rows of them were +placed between the rows of hops;) and it was to this position that Athelny +aspired when his family was old enough to form a company. Meanwhile he worked +rather by encouraging others than by exertions of his own. He sauntered up to +Mrs. Athelny, who had been busy for half an hour and had already emptied a +basket into the bin, and with his cigarette between his lips began to pick. He +asserted that he was going to pick more than anyone that day, but mother; of +course no one could pick so much as mother; that reminded him of the trials +which Aphrodite put upon the curious Psyche, and he began to tell his children +the story of her love for the unseen bridegroom. He told it very well. It +seemed to Philip, listening with a smile on his lips, that the old tale fitted +in with the scene. The sky was very blue now, and he thought it could not be +more lovely even in Greece. The children with their fair hair and rosy cheeks, +strong, healthy, and vivacious; the delicate form of the hops; the challenging +emerald of the leaves, like a blare of trumpets; the magic of the green alley, +narrowing to a point as you looked down the row, with the pickers in their +sun-bonnets: perhaps there was more of the Greek spirit there than you could +find in the books of professors or in museums. He was thankful for the beauty +of England. He thought of the winding white roads and the hedgerows, the green +meadows with their elm-trees, the delicate line of the hills and the copses +that crowned them, the flatness of the marshes, and the melancholy of the North +Sea. He was very glad that he felt its loveliness. But presently Athelny grew +restless and announced that he would go and ask how Robert Kemp’s mother +was. He knew everyone in the garden and called them all by their Christian +names; he knew their family histories and all that had happened to them from +birth. With harmless vanity he played the fine gentleman among them, and there +was a touch of condescension in his familiarity. Philip would not go with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to earn my dinner,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right, my boy,” answered Athelny, with a wave of the hand, +as he strolled away. “No work, no dinner.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXIX</h2> + +<p> +Philip had not a basket of his own, but sat with Sally. Jane thought it +monstrous that he should help her elder sister rather than herself, and he had +to promise to pick for her when Sally’s basket was full. Sally was almost +as quick as her mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t it hurt your hands for sewing?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, it wants soft hands. That’s why women pick better than +men. If your hands are hard and your fingers all stiff with a lot of rough work +you can’t pick near so well.” +</p> + +<p> +He liked to see her deft movements, and she watched him too now and then with +that maternal spirit of hers which was so amusing and yet so charming. He was +clumsy at first, and she laughed at him. When she bent over and showed him how +best to deal with a whole line their hands met. He was surprised to see her +blush. He could not persuade himself that she was a woman; because he had known +her as a flapper, he could not help looking upon her as a child still; yet the +number of her admirers showed that she was a child no longer; and though they +had only been down a few days one of Sally’s cousins was already so +attentive that she had to endure a lot of chaffing. His name was Peter Gann, +and he was the son of Mrs. Athelny’s sister, who had married a farmer +near Ferne. Everyone knew why he found it necessary to walk through the +hop-field every day. +</p> + +<p> +A call-off by the sounding of a horn was made for breakfast at eight, and +though Mrs. Athelny told them they had not deserved it, they ate it very +heartily. They set to work again and worked till twelve, when the horn sounded +once more for dinner. At intervals the measurer went his round from bin to bin, +accompanied by the booker, who entered first in his own book and then in the +hopper’s the number of bushels picked. As each bin was filled it was +measured out in bushel baskets into a huge bag called a poke; and this the +measurer and the pole-puller carried off between them and put on the waggon. +Athelny came back now and then with stories of how much Mrs. Heath or Mrs. +Jones had picked, and he conjured his family to beat her: he was always wanting +to make records, and sometimes in his enthusiasm picked steadily for an hour. +His chief amusement in it, however, was that it showed the beauty of his +graceful hands, of which he was excessively proud. He spent much time +manicuring them. He told Philip, as he stretched out his tapering fingers, that +the Spanish grandees had always slept in oiled gloves to preserve their +whiteness. The hand that wrung the throat of Europe, he remarked dramatically, +was as shapely and exquisite as a woman’s; and he looked at his own, as +he delicately picked the hops, and sighed with self-satisfaction. When he grew +tired of this he rolled himself a cigarette and discoursed to Philip of art and +literature. In the afternoon it grew very hot. Work did not proceed so actively +and conversation halted. The incessant chatter of the morning dwindled now to +desultory remarks. Tiny beads of sweat stood on Sally’s upper lip, and as +she worked her lips were slightly parted. She was like a rosebud bursting into +flower. +</p> + +<p> +Calling-off time depended on the state of the oast-house. Sometimes it was +filled early, and as many hops had been picked by three or four as could be +dried during the night. Then work was stopped. But generally the last measuring +of the day began at five. As each company had its bin measured it gathered up +its things and, chatting again now that work was over, sauntered out of the +garden. The women went back to the huts to clean up and prepare the supper, +while a good many of the men strolled down the road to the public-house. A +glass of beer was very pleasant after the day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +The Athelnys’ bin was the last to be dealt with. When the measurer came +Mrs. Athelny, with a sigh of relief, stood up and stretched her arms: she had +been sitting in the same position for many hours and was stiff. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, let’s go to The Jolly Sailor,” said Athelny. “The +rites of the day must be duly performed, and there is none more sacred than +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take a jug with you, Athelny,” said his wife, “and bring +back a pint and a half for supper.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him the money, copper by copper. The bar-parlour was already well +filled. It had a sanded floor, benches round it, and yellow pictures of +Victorian prize-fighters on the walls. The licencee knew all his customers by +name, and he leaned over his bar smiling benignly at two young men who were +throwing rings on a stick that stood up from the floor: their failure was +greeted with a good deal of hearty chaff from the rest of the company. Room was +made for the new arrivals. Philip found himself sitting between an old labourer +in corduroys, with string tied under his knees, and a shiny-faced lad of +seventeen with a love-lock neatly plastered on his red forehead. Athelny +insisted on trying his hand at the throwing of rings. He backed himself for +half a pint and won it. As he drank the loser’s health he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I would sooner have won this than won the Derby, my boy.” +</p> + +<p> +He was an outlandish figure, with his wide-brimmed hat and pointed beard, among +those country folk, and it was easy to see that they thought him very queer; +but his spirits were so high, his enthusiasm so contagious, that it was +impossible not to like him. Conversation went easily. A certain number of +pleasantries were exchanged in the broad, slow accent of the Isle of Thanet, +and there was uproarious laughter at the sallies of the local wag. A pleasant +gathering! It would have been a hard-hearted person who did not feel a glow of +satisfaction in his fellows. Philip’s eyes wandered out of the window +where it was bright and sunny still; there were little white curtains in it +tied up with red ribbon like those of a cottage window, and on the sill were +pots of geraniums. In due course one by one the idlers got up and sauntered +back to the meadow where supper was cooking. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect you’ll be ready for your bed,” said Mrs. Athelny to +Philip. “You’re not used to getting up at five and staying in the +open air all day.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re coming to bathe with us, Uncle Phil, aren’t +you?” the boys cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Rather.” +</p> + +<p> +He was tired and happy. After supper, balancing himself against the wall of the +hut on a chair without a back, he smoked his pipe and looked at the night. +Sally was busy. She passed in and out of the hut, and he lazily watched her +methodical actions. Her walk attracted his notice; it was not particularly +graceful, but it was easy and assured; she swung her legs from the hips, and +her feet seemed to tread the earth with decision. Athelny had gone off to +gossip with one of the neighbours, and presently Philip heard his wife address +the world in general. +</p> + +<p> +“There now, I’m out of tea and I wanted Athelny to go down to Mrs. +Black’s and get some.” A pause, and then her voice was raised: +“Sally, just run down to Mrs. Black’s and get me half a pound of +tea, will you? I’ve run quite out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Black had a cottage about half a mile along the road, and she combined the +office of postmistress with that of universal provider. Sally came out of the +hut, turning down her sleeves. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I come with you, Sally?” asked Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you trouble. I’m not afraid to go alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think you were; but it’s getting near my bedtime, +and I was just thinking I’d like to stretch my legs.” +</p> + +<p> +Sally did not answer, and they set out together. The road was white and silent. +There was not a sound in the summer night. They did not speak much. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s quite hot even now, isn’t it?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it’s wonderful for the time of year.” +</p> + +<p> +But their silence did not seem awkward. They found it was pleasant to walk side +by side and felt no need of words. Suddenly at a stile in the hedgerow they +heard a low murmur of voices, and in the darkness they saw the outline of two +people. They were sitting very close to one another and did not move as Philip +and Sally passed. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder who that was,” said Sally. +</p> + +<p> +“They looked happy enough, didn’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect they took us for lovers too.” +</p> + +<p> +They saw the light of the cottage in front of them, and in a minute went into +the little shop. The glare dazzled them for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“You are late,” said Mrs. Black. “I was just going to shut +up.” She looked at the clock. “Getting on for nine.” +</p> + +<p> +Sally asked for her half pound of tea (Mrs. Athelny could never bring herself +to buy more than half a pound at a time), and they set off up the road again. +Now and then some beast of the night made a short, sharp sound, but it seemed +only to make the silence more marked. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe if you stood still you could hear the sea,” said Sally. +</p> + +<p> +They strained their ears, and their fancy presented them with a faint sound of +little waves lapping up against the shingle. When they passed the stile again +the lovers were still there, but now they were not speaking; they were in one +another’s arms, and the man’s lips were pressed against the +girl’s. +</p> + +<p> +“They seem busy,” said Sally. +</p> + +<p> +They turned a corner, and a breath of warm wind beat for a moment against their +faces. The earth gave forth its freshness. There was something strange in the +tremulous night, and something, you knew not what, seemed to be waiting; the +silence was on a sudden pregnant with meaning. Philip had a queer feeling in +his heart, it seemed very full, it seemed to melt (the hackneyed phrases +expressed precisely the curious sensation), he felt happy and anxious and +expectant. To his memory came back those lines in which Jessica and Lorenzo +murmur melodious words to one another, capping each other’s utterance; +but passion shines bright and clear through the conceits that amuse them. He +did not know what there was in the air that made his senses so strangely alert; +it seemed to him that he was pure soul to enjoy the scents and the sounds and +the savours of the earth. He had never felt such an exquisite capacity for +beauty. He was afraid that Sally by speaking would break the spell, but she +said never a word, and he wanted to hear the sound of her voice. Its low +richness was the voice of the country night itself. +</p> + +<p> +They arrived at the field through which she had to walk to get back to the +huts. Philip went in to hold the gate open for her. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, here I think I’ll say good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for coming all that way with me.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him her hand, and as he took it, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“If you were very nice you’d kiss me good-night like the rest of +the family.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had spoken in jest. He merely wanted to kiss her, because he was happy +and he liked her and the night was so lovely. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night then,” he said, with a little laugh, drawing her +towards him. +</p> + +<p> +She gave him her lips; they were warm and full and soft; he lingered a little, +they were like a flower; then, he knew not how, without meaning it, he flung +his arms round her. She yielded quite silently. Her body was firm and strong. +He felt her heart beat against his. Then he lost his head. His senses +overwhelmed him like a flood of rushing waters. He drew her into the darker +shadow of the hedge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXX</h2> + +<p> +Philip slept like a log and awoke with a start to find Harold tickling his face +with a feather. There was a shout of delight when he opened his eyes. He was +drunken with sleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, lazybones,” said Jane. “Sally says she won’t +wait for you unless you hurry up.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he remembered what had happened. His heart sank, and, half out of bed +already, he stopped; he did not know how he was going to face her; he was +overwhelmed with a sudden rush of self-reproach, and bitterly, bitterly, he +regretted what he had done. What would she say to him that morning? He dreaded +meeting her, and he asked himself how he could have been such a fool. But the +children gave him no time; Edward took his bathing-drawers and his towel, +Athelstan tore the bed-clothes away; and in three minutes they all clattered +down into the road. Sally gave him a smile. It was as sweet and innocent as it +had ever been. +</p> + +<p> +“You do take a time to dress yourself,” she said. “I thought +you was never coming.” +</p> + +<p> +There was not a particle of difference in her manner. He had expected some +change, subtle or abrupt; he fancied that there would be shame in the way she +treated him, or anger, or perhaps some increase of familiarity; but there was +nothing. She was exactly the same as before. They walked towards the sea all +together, talking and laughing; and Sally was quiet, but she was always that, +reserved, but he had never seen her otherwise, and gentle. She neither sought +conversation with him nor avoided it. Philip was astounded. He had expected the +incident of the night before to have caused some revolution in her, but it was +just as though nothing had happened; it might have been a dream; and as he +walked along, a little girl holding on to one hand and a little boy to the +other, while he chatted as unconcernedly as he could, he sought for an +explanation. He wondered whether Sally meant the affair to be forgotten. +Perhaps her senses had run away with her just as his had, and, treating what +had occurred as an accident due to unusual circumstances, it might be that she +had decided to put the matter out of her mind. It was ascribing to her a power +of thought and a mature wisdom which fitted neither with her age nor with her +character. But he realised that he knew nothing of her. There had been in her +always something enigmatic. +</p> + +<p> +They played leap-frog in the water, and the bathe was as uproarious as on the +previous day. Sally mothered them all, keeping a watchful eye on them, and +calling to them when they went out too far. She swam staidly backwards and +forwards while the others got up to their larks, and now and then turned on her +back to float. Presently she went out and began drying herself; she called to +the others more or less peremptorily, and at last only Philip was left in the +water. He took the opportunity to have a good hard swim. He was more used to +the cold water this second morning, and he revelled in its salt freshness; it +rejoiced him to use his limbs freely, and he covered the water with long, firm +strokes. But Sally, with a towel round her, went down to the water’s +edge. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re to come out this minute, Philip,” she called, as +though he were a small boy under her charge. +</p> + +<p> +And when, smiling with amusement at her authoritative way, he came towards her, +she upbraided him. +</p> + +<p> +“It is naughty of you to stay in so long. Your lips are quite blue, and +just look at your teeth, they’re chattering.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right. I’ll come out.” +</p> + +<p> +She had never talked to him in that manner before. It was as though what had +happened gave her a sort of right over him, and she looked upon him as a child +to be cared for. In a few minutes they were dressed, and they started to walk +back. Sally noticed his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Just look, they’re quite blue.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right. It’s only the circulation. I shall get +the blood back in a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give them to me.” +</p> + +<p> +She took his hands in hers and rubbed them, first one and then the other, till +the colour returned. Philip, touched and puzzled, watched her. He could not say +anything to her on account of the children, and he did not meet her eyes; but +he was sure they did not avoid his purposely, it just happened that they did +not meet. And during the day there was nothing in her behaviour to suggest a +consciousness in her that anything had passed between them. Perhaps she was a +little more talkative than usual. When they were all sitting again in the +hop-field she told her mother how naughty Philip had been in not coming out of +the water till he was blue with cold. It was incredible, and yet it seemed that +the only effect of the incident of the night before was to arouse in her a +feeling of protection towards him: she had the same instinctive desire to +mother him as she had with regard to her brothers and sisters. +</p> + +<p> +It was not till the evening that he found himself alone with her. She was +cooking the supper, and Philip was sitting on the grass by the side of the +fire. Mrs. Athelny had gone down to the village to do some shopping, and the +children were scattered in various pursuits of their own. Philip hesitated to +speak. He was very nervous. Sally attended to her business with serene +competence and she accepted placidly the silence which to him was so +embarrassing. He did not know how to begin. Sally seldom spoke unless she was +spoken to or had something particular to say. At last he could not bear it any +longer. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not angry with me, Sally?” he blurted out suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +She raised her eyes quietly and looked at him without emotion. +</p> + +<p> +“Me? No. Why should I be?” +</p> + +<p> +He was taken aback and did not reply. She took the lid off the pot, stirred the +contents, and put it on again. A savoury smell spread over the air. She looked +at him once more, with a quiet smile which barely separated her lips; it was +more a smile of the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I always liked you,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +His heart gave a great thump against his ribs, and he felt the blood rushing to +his cheeks. He forced a faint laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know that.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s because you’re a silly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why you liked me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t either.” She put a little more wood on the fire. +“I knew I liked you that day you came when you’d been sleeping out +and hadn’t had anything to eat, d’you remember? And me and mother, +we got Thorpy’s bed ready for you.” +</p> + +<p> +He flushed again, for he did not know that she was aware of that incident. He +remembered it himself with horror and shame. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s why I wouldn’t have anything to do with the others. +You remember that young fellow mother wanted me to have? I let him come to tea +because he bothered so, but I knew I’d say no.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was so surprised that he found nothing to say. There was a queer feeling +in his heart; he did not know what it was, unless it was happiness. Sally +stirred the pot once more. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish those children would make haste and come. I don’t know +where they’ve got to. Supper’s ready now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I go and see if I can find them?” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +It was a relief to talk about practical things. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, I must say…. There’s mother +coming.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, as he got up, she looked at him without embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I come for a walk with you tonight when I’ve put the +children to bed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you wait for me down by the stile, and I’ll come when +I’m ready.” +</p> + +<p> +He waited under the stars, sitting on the stile, and the hedges with their +ripening blackberries were high on each side of him. From the earth rose rich +scents of the night, and the air was soft and still. His heart was beating +madly. He could not understand anything of what happened to him. He associated +passion with cries and tears and vehemence, and there was nothing of this in +Sally; but he did not know what else but passion could have caused her to give +herself. But passion for him? He would not have been surprised if she had +fallen to her cousin, Peter Gann, tall, spare, and straight, with his sunburned +face and long, easy stride. Philip wondered what she saw in him. He did not +know if she loved him as he reckoned love. And yet? He was convinced of her +purity. He had a vague inkling that many things had combined, things that she +felt though was unconscious of, the intoxication of the air and the hops and +the night, the healthy instincts of the natural woman, a tenderness that +overflowed, and an affection that had in it something maternal and something +sisterly; and she gave all she had to give because her heart was full of +charity. +</p> + +<p> +He heard a step on the road, and a figure came out of the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Sally,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +She stopped and came to the stile, and with her came sweet, clean odours of the +country-side. She seemed to carry with her scents of the new-mown hay, and the +savour of ripe hops, and the freshness of young grass. Her lips were soft and +full against his, and her lovely, strong body was firm within his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Milk and honey,” he said. “You’re like milk and +honey.” +</p> + +<p> +He made her close her eyes and kissed her eyelids, first one and then the +other. Her arm, strong and muscular, was bare to the elbow; he passed his hand +over it and wondered at its beauty; it gleamed in the darkness; she had the +skin that Rubens painted, astonishingly fair and transparent, and on one side +were little golden hairs. It was the arm of a Saxon goddess; but no immortal +had that exquisite, homely naturalness; and Philip thought of a cottage garden +with the dear flowers which bloom in all men’s hearts, of the hollyhock +and the red and white rose which is called York and Lancaster, and of +love—in-a-mist and Sweet William, and honeysuckle, larkspur, and London +Pride. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you care for me?” he said. “I’m insignificant +and crippled and ordinary and ugly.” +</p> + +<p> +She took his face in both her hands and kissed his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re an old silly, that’s what you are,” she said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXXI</h2> + +<p> +When the hops were picked, Philip with the news in his pocket that he had got +the appointment as assistant house-physician at St. Luke’s, accompanied +the Athelnys back to London. He took modest rooms in Westminster and at the +beginning of October entered upon his duties. The work was interesting and +varied; every day he learned something new; he felt himself of some +consequence; and he saw a good deal of Sally. He found life uncommonly +pleasant. He was free about six, except on the days on which he had +out-patients, and then he went to the shop at which Sally worked to meet her +when she came out. There were several young men, who hung about opposite the +‘trade entrance’ or a little further along, at the first corner; +and the girls, coming out two and two or in little groups, nudged one another +and giggled as they recognised them. Sally in her plain black dress looked very +different from the country lass who had picked hops side by side with him. She +walked away from the shop quickly, but she slackened her pace when they met, +and greeted him with her quiet smile. They walked together through the busy +street. He talked to her of his work at the hospital, and she told him what she +had been doing in the shop that day. He came to know the names of the girls she +worked with. He found that Sally had a restrained, but keen, sense of the +ridiculous, and she made remarks about the girls or the men who were set over +them which amused him by their unexpected drollery. She had a way of saying a +thing which was very characteristic, quite gravely, as though there were +nothing funny in it at all, and yet it was so sharp-sighted that Philip broke +into delighted laughter. Then she would give him a little glance in which the +smiling eyes showed she was not unaware of her own humour. They met with a +handshake and parted as formally. Once Philip asked her to come and have tea +with him in his rooms, but she refused. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t do that. It would look funny.” +</p> + +<p> +Never a word of love passed between them. She seemed not to desire anything +more than the companionship of those walks. Yet Philip was positive that she +was glad to be with him. She puzzled him as much as she had done at the +beginning. He did not begin to understand her conduct; but the more he knew her +the fonder he grew of her; she was competent and self controlled, and there was +a charming honesty in her: you felt that you could rely upon her in every +circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +“You are an awfully good sort,” he said to her once a propos of +nothing at all. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect I’m just the same as everyone else,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +He knew that he did not love her. It was a great affection that he felt for +her, and he liked her company; it was curiously soothing; and he had a feeling +for her which seemed to him ridiculous to entertain towards a shop-girl of +nineteen: he respected her. And he admired her magnificent healthiness. She was +a splendid animal, without defect; and physical perfection filled him always +with admiring awe. She made him feel unworthy. +</p> + +<p> +Then, one day, about three weeks after they had come back to London as they +walked together, he noticed that she was unusually silent. The serenity of her +expression was altered by a slight line between the eyebrows: it was the +beginning of a frown. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Sally?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She did not look at him, but straight in front of her, and her colour darkened. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +He understood at once what she meant. His heart gave a sudden, quick beat, and +he felt the colour leave his cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’you mean? Are you afraid that… ?” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped. He could not go on. The possibility that anything of the sort could +happen had never crossed his mind. Then he saw that her lips were trembling, +and she was trying not to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not certain yet. Perhaps it’ll be all right.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked on in silence till they came to the corner of Chancery Lane, where +he always left her. She held out her hand and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t worry about it yet. Let’s hope for the best.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked away with a tumult of thoughts in his head. What a fool he had been! +That was the first thing that struck him, an abject, miserable fool, and he +repeated it to himself a dozen times in a rush of angry feeling. He despised +himself. How could he have got into such a mess? But at the same time, for his +thoughts chased one another through his brain and yet seemed to stand together, +in a hopeless confusion, like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle seen in a +nightmare, he asked himself what he was going to do. Everything was so clear +before him, all he had aimed at so long within reach at last, and now his +inconceivable stupidity had erected this new obstacle. Philip had never been +able to surmount what he acknowledged was a defect in his resolute desire for a +well ordered life, and that was his passion for living in the future; and no +sooner was he settled in his work at the hospital than he had busied himself +with arrangements for his travels. In the past he had often tried not to think +too circumstantially of his plans for the future, it was only discouraging; but +now that his goal was so near he saw no harm in giving away to a longing that +was so difficult to resist. First of all he meant to go to Spain. That was the +land of his heart; and by now he was imbued with its spirit, its romance and +colour and history and grandeur; he felt that it had a message for him in +particular which no other country could give. He knew the fine old cities +already as though he had trodden their tortuous streets from childhood. +Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Leon, Tarragona, Burgos. The great painters of Spain +were the painters of his soul, and his pulse beat quickly as he pictured his +ecstasy on standing face to face with those works which were more significant +than any others to his own tortured, restless heart. He had read the great +poets, more characteristic of their race than the poets of other lands; for +they seemed to have drawn their inspiration not at all from the general +currents of the world’s literature but directly from the torrid, scented +plains and the bleak mountains of their country. A few short months now, and he +would hear with his own ears all around him the language which seemed most apt +for grandeur of soul and passion. His fine taste had given him an inkling that +Andalusia was too soft and sensuous, a little vulgar even, to satisfy his +ardour; and his imagination dwelt more willingly among the wind-swept distances +of Castile and the rugged magnificence of Aragon and Leon. He did not know +quite what those unknown contacts would give him, but he felt that he would +gather from them a strength and a purpose which would make him more capable of +affronting and comprehending the manifold wonders of places more distant and +more strange. +</p> + +<p> +For this was only a beginning. He had got into communication with the various +companies which took surgeons out on their ships, and knew exactly what were +their routes, and from men who had been on them what were the advantages and +disadvantages of each line. He put aside the Orient and the P. & O. It was +difficult to get a berth with them; and besides their passenger traffic allowed +the medical officer little freedom; but there were other services which sent +large tramps on leisurely expeditions to the East, stopping at all sorts of +ports for various periods, from a day or two to a fortnight, so that you had +plenty of time, and it was often possible to make a trip inland. The pay was +poor and the food no more than adequate, so that there was not much demand for +the posts, and a man with a London degree was pretty sure to get one if he +applied. Since there were no passengers other than a casual man or so, shipping +on business from some out-of-the-way port to another, the life on board was +friendly and pleasant. Philip knew by heart the list of places at which they +touched; and each one called up in him visions of tropical sunshine, and magic +colour, and of a teeming, mysterious, intense life. Life! That was what he +wanted. At last he would come to close quarters with Life. And perhaps, from +Tokyo or Shanghai it would be possible to tranship into some other line and +drip down to the islands of the South Pacific. A doctor was useful anywhere. +There might be an opportunity to go up country in Burmah, and what rich jungles +in Sumatra or Borneo might he not visit? He was young still and time was no +object to him. He had no ties in England, no friends; he could go up and down +the world for years, learning the beauty and the wonder and the variedness of +life. +</p> + +<p> +Now this thing had come. He put aside the possibility that Sally was mistaken; +he felt strangely certain that she was right; after all, it was so likely; +anyone could see that Nature had built her to be the mother of children. He +knew what he ought to do. He ought not to let the incident divert him a +hair’s breadth from his path. He thought of Griffiths; he could easily +imagine with what indifference that young man would have received such a piece +of news; he would have thought it an awful nuisance and would at once have +taken to his heels, like a wise fellow; he would have left the girl to deal +with her troubles as best she could. Philip told himself that if this had +happened it was because it was inevitable. He was no more to blame than Sally; +she was a girl who knew the world and the facts of life, and she had taken the +risk with her eyes open. It would be madness to allow such an accident to +disturb the whole pattern of his life. He was one of the few people who was +acutely conscious of the transitoriness of life, and how necessary it was to +make the most of it. He would do what he could for Sally; he could afford to +give her a sufficient sum of money. A strong man would never allow himself to +be turned from his purpose. +</p> + +<p> +Philip said all this to himself, but he knew he could not do it. He simply +could not. He knew himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so damned weak,” he muttered despairingly. +</p> + +<p> +She had trusted him and been kind to him. He simply could not do a thing which, +notwithstanding all his reason, he felt was horrible. He knew he would have no +peace on his travels if he had the thought constantly with him that she was +wretched. Besides, there were her father and mother: they had always treated +him well; it was not possible to repay them with ingratitude. The only thing +was to marry Sally as quickly as possible. He would write to Doctor South, tell +him he was going to be married at once, and say that if his offer still held he +was willing to accept it. That sort of practice, among poor people, was the +only one possible for him; there his deformity did not matter, and they would +not sneer at the simple manners of his wife. It was curious to think of her as +his wife, it gave him a queer, soft feeling; and a wave of emotion spread over +him as he thought of the child which was his. He had little doubt that Doctor +South would be glad to have him, and he pictured to himself the life he would +lead with Sally in the fishing village. They would have a little house within +sight of the sea, and he would watch the mighty ships passing to the lands he +would never know. Perhaps that was the wisest thing. Cronshaw had told him that +the facts of life mattered nothing to him who by the power of fancy held in fee +the twin realms of space and time. It was true. Forever wilt thou love and she +be fair! +</p> + +<p> +His wedding present to his wife would be all his high hopes. Self-sacrifice! +Philip was uplifted by its beauty, and all through the evening he thought of +it. He was so excited that he could not read. He seemed to be driven out of his +rooms into the streets, and he walked up and down Birdcage Walk, his heart +throbbing with joy. He could hardly bear his impatience. He wanted to see +Sally’s happiness when he made her his offer, and if it had not been so +late he would have gone to her there and then. He pictured to himself the long +evenings he would spend with Sally in the cosy sitting-room, the blinds undrawn +so that they could watch the sea; he with his books, while she bent over her +work, and the shaded lamp made her sweet face more fair. They would talk over +the growing child, and when she turned her eyes to his there was in them the +light of love. And the fishermen and their wives who were his patients would +come to feel a great affection for them, and they in their turn would enter +into the pleasures and pains of those simple lives. But his thoughts returned +to the son who would be his and hers. Already he felt in himself a passionate +devotion to it. He thought of passing his hands over his little perfect limbs, +he knew he would be beautiful; and he would make over to him all his dreams of +a rich and varied life. And thinking over the long pilgrimage of his past he +accepted it joyfully. He accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for +him; he knew that it had warped his character, but now he saw also that by +reason of it he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so +much delight. Without it he would never have had his keen appreciation of +beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his interest in the varied +spectacle of life. The ridicule and the contempt which had so often been heaped +upon him had turned his mind inward and called forth those flowers which he +felt would never lose their fragrance. Then he saw that the normal was the +rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of body or of mind: he +thought of all the people he had known (the whole world was like a sick-house, +and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he saw a long procession, deformed in +body and warped in mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak +lungs, and some with illness of the spirit, languor of will, or a craving for +liquor. At this moment he could feel a holy compassion for them all. They were +the helpless instruments of blind chance. He could pardon Griffiths for his +treachery and Mildred for the pain she had caused him. They could not help +themselves. The only reasonable thing was to accept the good of men and be +patient with their faults. The words of the dying God crossed his memory: +</p> + +<p> +Forgive them, for they know not what they do. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CXXII</h2> + +<p> +He had arranged to meet Sally on Saturday in the National Gallery. She was to +come there as soon as she was released from the shop and had agreed to lunch +with him. Two days had passed since he had seen her, and his exultation had not +left him for a moment. It was because he rejoiced in the feeling that he had +not attempted to see her. He had repeated to himself exactly what he would say +to her and how he should say it. Now his impatience was unbearable. He had +written to Doctor South and had in his pocket a telegram from him received that +morning: “Sacking the mumpish fool. When will you come?” Philip +walked along Parliament Street. It was a fine day, and there was a bright, +frosty sun which made the light dance in the street. It was crowded. There was +a tenuous mist in the distance, and it softened exquisitely the noble lines of +the buildings. He crossed Trafalgar Square. Suddenly his heart gave a sort of +twist in his body; he saw a woman in front of him who he thought was Mildred. +She had the same figure, and she walked with that slight dragging of the feet +which was so characteristic of her. Without thinking, but with a beating heart, +he hurried till he came alongside, and then, when the woman turned, he saw it +was someone unknown to him. It was the face of a much older person, with a +lined, yellow skin. He slackened his pace. He was infinitely relieved, but it +was not only relief that he felt; it was disappointment too; he was seized with +horror of himself. Would he never be free from that passion? At the bottom of +his heart, notwithstanding everything, he felt that a strange, desperate thirst +for that vile woman would always linger. That love had caused him so much +suffering that he knew he would never, never quite be free of it. Only death +could finally assuage his desire. +</p> + +<p> +But he wrenched the pang from his heart. He thought of Sally, with her kind +blue eyes; and his lips unconsciously formed themselves into a smile. He walked +up the steps of the National Gallery and sat down in the first room, so that he +should see her the moment she came in. It always comforted him to get among +pictures. He looked at none in particular, but allowed the magnificence of +their colour, the beauty of their lines, to work upon his soul. His imagination +was busy with Sally. It would be pleasant to take her away from that London in +which she seemed an unusual figure, like a cornflower in a shop among orchids +and azaleas; he had learned in the Kentish hop-field that she did not belong to +the town; and he was sure that she would blossom under the soft skies of Dorset +to a rarer beauty. She came in, and he got up to meet her. She was in black, +with white cuffs at her wrists and a lawn collar round her neck. They shook +hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been waiting long?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Ten minutes. Are you hungry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not very.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s sit here for a bit, shall we?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you like.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking. Philip enjoyed having her +near him. He was warmed by her radiant health. A glow of life seemed like an +aureole to shine about her. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how have you been?” he said at last, with a little smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s all right. It was a false alarm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you glad?” +</p> + +<p> +An extraordinary sensation filled him. He had felt certain that Sally’s +suspicion was well-founded; it had never occurred to him for an instant that +there was a possibility of error. All his plans were suddenly overthrown, and +the existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than a dream which would +never be realised. He was free once more. Free! He need give up none of his +projects, and life still was in his hands for him to do what he liked with. He +felt no exhilaration, but only dismay. His heart sank. The future stretched out +before him in desolate emptiness. It was as though he had sailed for many years +over a great waste of waters, with peril and privation, and at last had come +upon a fair haven, but as he was about to enter, some contrary wind had arisen +and drove him out again into the open sea; and because he had let his mind +dwell on these soft meads and pleasant woods of the land, the vast deserts of +the ocean filled him with anguish. He could not confront again the loneliness +and the tempest. Sally looked at him with her clear eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you glad?” she asked again. “I thought +you’d be as pleased as Punch.” +</p> + +<p> +He met her gaze haggardly. “I’m not sure,” he muttered. +</p> + +<p> +“You are funny. Most men would.” +</p> + +<p> +He realised that he had deceived himself; it was no self-sacrifice that had +driven him to think of marrying, but the desire for a wife and a home and love; +and now that it all seemed to slip through his fingers he was seized with +despair. He wanted all that more than anything in the world. What did he care +for Spain and its cities, Cordova, Toledo, Leon; what to him were the pagodas +of Burmah and the lagoons of South Sea Islands? America was here and now. It +seemed to him that all his life he had followed the ideals that other people, +by their words or their writings, had instilled into him, and never the desires +of his own heart. Always his course had been swayed by what he thought he +should do and never by what he wanted with his whole soul to do. He put all +that aside now with a gesture of impatience. He had lived always in the future, +and the present always, always had slipped through his fingers. His ideals? He +thought of his desire to make a design, intricate and beautiful, out of the +myriad, meaningless facts of life: had he not seen also that the simplest +pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, +was likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to happiness was +to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced quickly at Sally, he wondered what she was thinking, and then looked +away again. +</p> + +<p> +“I was going to ask you to marry me,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought p’raps you might, but I shouldn’t have liked to +stand in your way.” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t have done that.” +</p> + +<p> +“How about your travels, Spain and all that?” +</p> + +<p> +“How d’you know I want to travel?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to know something about it. I’ve heard you and Dad talk +about it till you were blue in the face.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care a damn about all that.” He paused for an +instant and then spoke in a low, hoarse whisper. “I don’t want to +leave you! I can’t leave you.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer. He could not tell what she thought. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if you’ll marry me, Sally.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not move and there was no flicker of emotion on her face, but she did +not look at him when she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“If you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, of course I’d like to have a house of my own, and it’s +about time I was settling down.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled a little. He knew her pretty well by now, and her manner did not +surprise him. +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you want to marry ME?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no one else I would marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that settles it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother and Dad will be surprised, won’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want my lunch,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear!” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled and took her hand and pressed it. They got up and walked out of the +gallery. They stood for a moment at the balustrade and looked at Trafalgar +Square. Cabs and omnibuses hurried to and fro, and crowds passed, hastening in +every direction, and the sun was shining. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF HUMAN BONDAGE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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