Of Human Bondage (57 page)

  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.

  "I always like to go to church once," she said. "it
looks well, doesn't it?"

  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.

  "Don't be angry with me," he said. "I'm so awfully
fond of you that I can't help myself."

  "One of these days you'll go too far," she
answered.

  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.

  "My aunt would think it so funny," she said.

  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.

  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.

  "You're not going?" he said.

  "Why shouldn't I? He's a very nice gentlemanly
fellow."

  "I'll take you anywhere you like."

  "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."

  "If you had any sense of decency, if you had any
gratitude, you wouldn't dream of going."

  "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."

  Her voice had the shrewish tone it sometimes
got.

  "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."

  (He knew it was madness to go on asking her that,
but he could not help himself.

  "Oh, I like you all right," she would answer.

  "Is that all? I love you with all my heart."

  "I'm not that sort, I'm not one to say much."

  "If you knew how happy just one word would make
me!"

  "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."

  But sometimes she expressed herself more plainly
still, and, when he asked the question, answered:

  "Oh, don't go on at that again."

  Then he became sulky and silent. He hated her.)

  And now he said:

  "Oh, well, if you feel like that about it I wonder
you condescend to come out with me at all."

  "It's not my seeking, you can be very sure of that,
you just force me to."

  His pride was bitterly hurt, and he answered
madly.

  "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."

  "I'm not going to be talked to like that by anyone.
I'll just show you how much I want your dirty dinner."

  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.

  As soon as she had turned out of the main street,
brightly lit and noisy with traffic, he caught her up.

  "Mildred," he called.

  She walked on and would neither look at him nor
answer. He repeated her name. Then she stopped and faced him.

  "What d'you want? I saw you hanging about Victoria.
Why don't you leave me alone?"

  "I'm awfully sorry. Won't you make it up?"

  "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."

  She walked on quickly, and he had to hurry to keep
up with her.

  "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."

  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.

  "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."

  She stopped again, for they had reached the corner
at which he always left her.

  "Now you can take yourself off. I won't have you
coming up to the door."

  "I won't go till you say you'll forgive me."

  "I'm sick and tired of the whole thing."

  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.

  "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."

  "Philip, I didn't mean that," she answered quickly,
with a sudden break of pity in her voice. "You know it's not
true."

  He was beginning to act now, and his voice was husky
and low.

  "Oh, I've felt it," he said.

  She took his hand and looked at him, and her own
eyes were filled with tears.

  "I promise you it never made any difference to me. I
never thought about it after the first day or two."

  He kept a gloomy, tragic silence. He wanted her to
think he was overcome with emotion.

  "You know I like you awfully, Philip. Only you are
so trying sometimes. Let's make it up."

  She put up her lips to his, and with a sigh of
relief he kissed her.

  "Now are you happy again?" she asked.

  "Madly"

  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.

  But three or four days later, when she brought him
his tea, Mildred said to him:

  "You remember what you promised the other night? You
mean to keep that, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  He knew exactly what she meant and was prepared for
her next words.

  "Because I'm going out with that gentleman I told
you about tonight."

  "All right. I hope you'll enjoy yourself."

  "You don't mind, do you?"

  He had himself now under excellent control.

  "I don't like it," he smiled, "but I'm not going to
make myself more disagreeable than I can help."

  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.

  "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.

  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.

  "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."

  "He's a gentleman in every sense of the word,"
thought Philip, but he clenched his teeth to prevent himself from
uttering a syllable.

  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.

  Printed matter had always been a fetish to Philip,
and now, in order to make himself more interesting, he read
industriously The Sporting Times.

  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.