Of Human Bondage (14 page)

  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.

  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.

  "I can't walk fast enough for you," he said.

  "Rot. Come on."

  And just before they were setting out some boy put
his head in the study-door and asked Rose to go with him.

  "I can't," he answered. "I've already promised
Carey."

  "Don't bother about me," said Philip quickly. "I
shan't mind."

  "Rot," said Rose.

  He looked at Philip with those good-natured eyes of
his and laughed. Philip felt a curious tremor in his heart.

  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.

  "Oh, I don't know," he answered. "He's not half a
bad chap really."

  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.

  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:

  "Well, are you glad to be going back to school?"

  Philip answered joyfully.

  "Rather."

  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.

  "I say, why are you so late?" said Rose. "I thought
you were never coming."

  "You were at the station at half-past four," said
another boy. "I saw you when I came."

  Philip blushed a little. He did not want Rose to
know that he had been such a fool as to wait for him.

  "I had to see about a friend of my people's," he
invented readily. "I was asked to see her off."

  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.

  "I say, I'm jolly glad we're in the same study this
term. Ripping, isn't it?"

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  "Who the devil's that?" he cried. And then, seeing
Philip: "Oh, it's you."

  Philip stopped in embarrassment.

  "I thought I'd come in and see how you were."

  "We were just working."

  Hunter broke into the conversation.

  "When did you get back?"

  "Five minutes ago."

  They sat and looked at him as though he was
disturbing them. They evidently expected him to go quickly. Philip
reddened.

  "I'll be off. You might look in when you've done,"
he said to Rose.

  "All right."

  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.

  "May I come in?" he asked.

  Rose looked at him with an embarrassment that made
him angry with Philip.

  "Yes, if you want to."

  "It's very kind of you," said Philip
sarcastically.

  "What d'you want?"

  "I say, why have you been so rotten since I came
back?"

  "Oh, don't be an ass," said Rose.

  "I don't know what you see in Hunter."

  "That's my business."

  Philip looked down. He could not bring himself to
say what was in his heart. He was afraid of humiliating himself.
Rose got up.

  "I've got to go to the Gym," he said.

  When he was at the door Philip forced himself to
speak.

  "I say, Rose, don't be a perfect beast."

  "Oh, go to hell."

  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.

  "After all, it wasn't likely to last long. I wonder
he ever stuck Carey at all. Blighter!"

  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.