Of Human Bondage
“What is your rent here?”
“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.”
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.
“Where are you going, Mildred?”
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.
“Oh, I was only going to see the show. It gives me the hump sitting
every night by myself.”
He did not pretend to believe her.
“You mustn’t. Good heavens, I’ve told you fifty times how dangerous it
is. You must stop this sort of thing at once.”
“Oh, hold your jaw,” she cried roughly. “How d’you suppose I’m going to
live?”
He took hold of her arm and without thinking what he was doing tried to
drag her away.
“For God’s sake come along. Let me take you home. You don’t know what
you’re doing. It’s criminal.”
“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.”
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.
“I can’t do anything more,” he said to himself.
That was the end. He did not see her again.
CX
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:
“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.”
Philip nodded, and she led him into the dining-room.
“Here’s Mr. Philip, sir.”
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.
“He can’t last long now,” thought Philip, as he looked at him.
“How d’you think I’m looking?” asked the Vicar. “D’you think I’ve
changed since you were here last?”
“I think you look stronger than you did last summer.”
“It was the heat. That always upsets me.”
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.
“On the seventh of November, sir.”
Mr. Carey looked at Philip to see how he took the information.
“But I eat well still, don’t I, Mrs. Foster?”
“Yes, sir, you’ve got a wonderful appetite.”
“I don’t seem to put on flesh though.”
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.
“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.”
Patiently she took it off the chimney-piece and handed it to Philip.
“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.”
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:
“Oh, I wasn’t sure if you were there. I only rang to see if you were.”
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.
“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:
“Master Philip says you’ve got too much to do, Mrs. Foster. You like
looking after me, don’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t mind, sir. I want to do everything I can.”
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.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“You’re not looking forward to my death, Philip?” Philip felt his heart
beat against his chest.
“Good heavens, no.”