Of Human Bondage (8 page)

  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.

  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.

  Philip noticed that 'extras' gave boys a certain
consideration and made up his mind, when he wrote to Aunt Louisa,
to ask for them.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  In the afternoon they went up to play football, but
Mr. Watson stopped Philip on the way out after dinner.

  "I suppose you can't play football, Carey?" he asked
him.

  Philip blushed self-consciously.

  "No, sir."

  "Very well. You'd better go up to the field. You can
walk as far as that, can't you? "

  Philip had no idea where the field was, but he
answered all the same.

  "Yes, sir."

  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.

  "Mr. Watson said I needn't, sir," said Philip.

  "Why?"

  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.

  "He's got a club-foot, sir."

  "Oh, I see."

  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.

  "Now then, you boys, what are you waiting about for?
Get on with you."

  Some of them had already started and those that were
left now set off, in groups of two or three.

  "You'd better come along with me, Carey," said the
master "You don't know the way, do you?"

  Philip guessed the kindness, and a sob came to his
throat.

  "I can't go very fast, sir."

  "Then I'll go very slow," said the master, with a
smile.

  Philip's heart went out to the red-faced,
commonplace young man who said a gentle word to him. He suddenly
felt less unhappy.

  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.

  "I say, let's look at your foot," he said.

  "No," answered Philip.

  He jumped into bed quickly.

  "Don't say no to me," said Singer. "Come on,
Mason."

  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.

  "Why can't you leave me alone?" he cried.

  Singer seized a brush and with the back of it beat
Philip's hands clenched on the blanket. Philip cried out.

  "Why don't you show us your foot quietly?"

  "I won't."

  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.

  "Oh, don't, don't," said Philip. "You'll break my
arm."

  "Stop still then and put out your foot."

  Philip gave a sob and a gasp. The boy gave the arm
another wrench. The pain was unendurable.

  "All right. I'll do it," said Philip.

  He put out his foot. Singer still kept his hand on
Philip's wrist. He looked curiously at the deformity.

  "Isn't it beastly?" said Mason.

  Another came in and looked too.

  "Ugh," he said, in disgust.

  "My word, it is rum," said Singer, making a face.
"Is it hard?"

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.