Of Human Bondage (3 page)

  "A small room for a small boy," said Mrs. Carey.
"You won't be frightened at sleeping alone?"

  "Oh, no."

  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.

  "Can you wash your own hands, or shall I wash them
for you?"

  "I can wash myself," he answered firmly.

  "Well, I shall look at them when you come down to
tea," said Mrs. Carey.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  "What are we waiting for?" said Mr. Carey.

  "I told Mary Ann to make you an egg. I thought you'd
be hungry after your journey."

  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.

  "I'll put some books under him," said Mary Ann.

  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.

  "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?"

  Mr. Carey considered the question for an
instant.

  "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."

  "I hadn't thought of that, William," said Aunt
Louisa.

  Philip perched himself on the books, and the Vicar,
having said grace, cut the top off his egg.

  "There," he said, handing it to Philip, "you can eat
my top if you like."

  Philip would have liked an egg to himself, but he
was not offered one, so took what he could.

  "How have the chickens been laying since I went
away?" asked the Vicar.

  "Oh, they've been dreadful, only one or two a
day."

  "How did you like that top, Philip?" asked his
uncle.

  "Very much, thank you."

  "You shall have another one on Sunday
afternoon."

  Mr. Carey always had a boiled egg at tea on Sunday,
so that he might be fortified for the evening service.

  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.

  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.

  "D'you know anything about these, Philip?" he
asked.

  "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."

  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.

  "You'd better take one of the photographs and keep
it in your room," said Mr. Carey. "I'll put the others away."

  He sent one to Miss Watkin, and she wrote and
explained how they came to be taken.

  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.

  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.

  "I wanted the boy to have something to remember me
by when he grows up."

  "I can't make out why she ordered a dozen," said Mr.
Carey. "Two would have done."