Of Human Bondage
interrupted now and then to offer the young man more tea or to press
upon him cake and jam. Philip watched Sally; she sat with downcast
eyes, calm, silent, and observant; and her long eye-lashes cast a
pretty shadow on her cheek. You could not tell whether she was amused
at the scene or if she cared for the young man. She was inscrutable.
But one thing was certain: the electrical engineer was good-looking,
fair and clean-shaven, with pleasant, regular features, and an honest
face; he was tall and well-made. Philip could not help thinking he
would make an excellent mate for her, and he felt a pang of envy for
the happiness which he fancied was in store for them.
Presently the suitor said he thought it was about time he was getting
along. Sally rose to her feet without a word and accompanied him to the
door. When she came back her father burst out:
“Well, Sally, we think your young man very nice. We are prepared to
welcome him into our family. Let the banns be called and I will compose
a nuptial song.”
Sally set about clearing away the tea-things. She did not answer.
Suddenly she shot a swift glance at Philip.
“What did you think of him, Mr. Philip?”
She had always refused to call him Uncle Phil as the other children
did, and would not call him Philip.
“I think you’d make an awfully handsome pair.”
She looked at him quickly once more, and then with a slight blush went
on with her business.
“I thought him a very nice civil-spoken young fellow,” said Mrs.
Athelny, “and I think he’s just the sort to make any girl happy.”
Sally did not reply for a minute or two, and Philip looked at her
curiously: it might be thought that she was meditating upon what her
mother had said, and on the other hand she might be thinking of the man
in the moon.
“Why don’t you answer when you’re spoken to, Sally?” remarked her
mother, a little irritably.
“I thought he was a silly.”
“Aren’t you going to have him then?”
“No, I’m not.”
“I don’t know how much more you want,” said Mrs. Athelny, and it was
quite clear now that she was put out. “He’s a very decent young fellow
and he can afford to give you a thorough good home. We’ve got quite
enough to feed here without you. If you get a chance like that it’s
wicked not to take it. And I daresay you’d be able to have a girl to do
the rough work.”
Philip had never before heard Mrs. Athelny refer so directly to the
difficulties of her life. He saw how important it was that each child
should be provided for.
“It’s no good your carrying on, mother,” said Sally in her quiet way.
“I’m not going to marry him.”
“I think you’re a very hard-hearted, cruel, selfish girl.”
“If you want me to earn my own living, mother, I can always go into
service.”
“Don’t be so silly, you know your father would never let you do that.”
Philip caught Sally’s eye, and he thought there was in it a glimmer of
amusement. He wondered what there had been in the conversation to touch
her sense of humour. She was an odd girl.
CXVI
During his last year at St. Luke’s Philip had to work hard. He was
contented with life. He found it very comfortable to be heart-free and
to have enough money for his needs. He had heard people speak
contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do
without it. He knew that the lack made a man petty, mean, grasping; it
distorted his character and caused him to view the world from a vulgar
angle; when you had to consider every penny, money became of grotesque
importance: you needed a competency to rate it at its proper value. He
lived a solitary life, seeing no one except the Athelnys, but he was
not lonely; he busied himself with plans for the future, and sometimes
he thought of the past. His recollection dwelt now and then on old
friends, but he made no effort to see them. He would have liked to know
what was become of Norah Nesbit; she was Norah something else now, but
he could not remember the name of the man she was going to marry; he
was glad to have known her: she was a good and a brave soul. One
evening about half past eleven he saw Lawson, walking along Piccadilly;
he was in evening clothes and might be supposed to be coming back from
a theatre. Philip gave way to a sudden impulse and quickly turned down
a side street. He had not seen him for two years and felt that he could
not now take up again the interrupted friendship. He and Lawson had
nothing more to say to one another. Philip was no longer interested in
art; it seemed to him that he was able to enjoy beauty with greater
force than when he was a boy; but art appeared to him unimportant. He
was occupied with the forming of a pattern out of the manifold chaos of
life, and the materials with which he worked seemed to make
preoccupation with pigments and words very trivial. Lawson had served
his turn. Philip’s friendship with him had been a motive in the design
he was elaborating: it was merely sentimental to ignore the fact that
the painter was of no further interest to him.
Sometimes Philip thought of Mildred. He avoided deliberately the
streets in which there was a chance of seeing her; but occasionally
some feeling, perhaps curiosity, perhaps something deeper which he
would not acknowledge, made him wander about Piccadilly and Regent
Street during the hours when she might be expected to be there. He did
not know then whether he wished to see her or dreaded it. Once he saw a
back which reminded him of hers, and for a moment he thought it was
she; it gave him a curious sensation: it was a strange sharp pain in
his heart, there was fear in it and a sickening dismay; and when he
hurried on and found that he was mistaken he did not know whether it
was relief that he experienced or disappointment.
At the beginning of August Philip passed his surgery, his last
examination, and received his diploma. It was seven years since he had
entered St. Luke’s Hospital. He was nearly thirty. He walked down the
stairs of the Royal College of Surgeons with the roll in his hand which
qualified him to practice, and his heart beat with satisfaction.
“Now I’m really going to begin life,” he thought.
Next day he went to the secretary’s office to put his name down for one
of the hospital appointments. The secretary was a pleasant little man
with a black beard, whom Philip had always found very affable. He
congratulated him on his success, and then said:
“I suppose you wouldn’t like to do a locum for a month on the South
coast? Three guineas a week with board and lodging.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” said Philip.
“It’s at Farnley, in Dorsetshire. Doctor South. You’d have to go down
at once; his assistant has developed mumps. I believe it’s a very
pleasant place.”
There was something in the secretary’s manner that puzzled Philip. It
was a little doubtful.
“What’s the crab in it?” he asked.
The secretary hesitated a moment and laughed in a conciliating fashion.
“Well, the fact is, I understand he’s rather a crusty, funny old
fellow. The agencies won’t send him anyone any more. He speaks his mind
very openly, and men don’t like it.”
“But d’you think he’ll be satisfied with a man who’s only just
qualified? After all I have no experience.”
“He ought to be glad to get you,” said the secretary diplomatically.
Philip thought for a moment. He had nothing to do for the next few
weeks, and he was glad of the chance to earn a bit of money. He could
put it aside for the holiday in Spain which he had promised himself
when he had finished his appointment at St. Luke’s or, if they would
not give him anything there, at some other hospital.
“All right. I’ll go.”
“The only thing is, you must go this afternoon. Will that suit you? If
so, I’ll send a wire at once.”
Philip would have liked a few days to himself; but he had seen the
Athelnys the night before (he had gone at once to take them his good
news) and there was really no reason why he should not start
immediately. He had little luggage to pack. Soon after seven that
evening he got out of the station at Farnley and took a cab to Doctor
South’s. It was a broad low stucco house, with a Virginia creeper
growing over it. He was shown into the consulting-room. An old man was
writing at a desk. He looked up as the maid ushered Philip in. He did
not get up, and he did not speak; he merely stared at Philip. Philip
was taken aback.
“I think you’re expecting me,” he said. “The secretary of St. Luke’s
wired to you this morning.”
“I kept dinner back for half an hour. D’you want to wash?”
“I do,” said Philip.
Doctor South amused him by his odd manner. He got up now, and Philip
saw that he was a man of middle height, thin, with white hair cut very
short and a long mouth closed so tightly that he seemed to have no lips
at all; he was clean-shaven but for small white whiskers, and they
increased the squareness of face which his firm jaw gave him. He wore a
brown tweed suit and a white stock. His clothes hung loosely about him
as though they had been made for a much larger man. He looked like a
respectable farmer of the middle of the nineteenth century. He opened
the door.
“There is the dining-room,” he said, pointing to the door opposite.
“Your bed-room is the first door you come to when you get on the
landing. Come downstairs when you’re ready.”
During dinner Philip knew that Doctor South was examining him, but he
spoke little, and Philip felt that he did not want to hear his
assistant talk.
“When were you qualified?” he asked suddenly.
“Yesterday.”
“Were you at a university?”
“No.”
“Last year when my assistant took a holiday they sent me a ’Varsity
man. I told ’em not to do it again. Too damned gentlemanly for me.”
There was another pause. The dinner was very simple and very good.
Philip preserved a sedate exterior, but in his heart he was bubbling
over with excitement. He was immensely elated at being engaged as a
locum; it made him feel extremely grown up; he had an insane desire to
laugh at nothing in particular; and the more he thought of his
professional dignity the more he was inclined to chuckle.
But Doctor South broke suddenly into his thoughts. “How old are you?”
“Getting on for thirty.”
“How is it you’re only just qualified?”
“I didn’t go in for the medical till I was nearly twenty-three, and I
had to give it up for two years in the middle.”
“Why?”
“Poverty.”
Doctor South gave him an odd look and relapsed into silence. At the end
of dinner he got up from the table.
“D’you know what sort of a practice this is?”
“No,” answered Philip.
“Mostly fishermen and their families. I have the Union and the Seamen’s
Hospital. I used to be alone here, but since they tried to make this
into a fashionable sea-side resort a man has set up on the cliff, and
the well-to-do people go to him. I only have those who can’t afford to
pay for a doctor at all.”
Philip saw that the rivalry was a sore point with the old man.
“You know that I have no experience,” said Philip.
“You none of you know anything.”
He walked out of the room without another word and left Philip by
himself. When the maid came in to clear away she told Philip that
Doctor South saw patients from six till seven. Work for that night was
over. Philip fetched a book from his room, lit his pipe, and settled
himself down to read. It was a great comfort, since he had read nothing
but medical books for the last few months. At ten o’clock Doctor South
came in and looked at him. Philip hated not to have his feet up, and he
had dragged up a chair for them.
“You seem able to make yourself pretty comfortable,” said Doctor South,
with a grimness which would have disturbed Philip if he had not been in
such high spirits.
Philip’s eyes twinkled as he answered.
“Have you any objection?”