Of Human Bondage
and Rose was asked what he saw in Philip.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “He’s not half a bad chap really.”
Soon they grew accustomed to the two walking into chapel arm in arm or
strolling round the precincts in conversation; wherever one was the
other could be found also, and, as though acknowledging his
proprietorship, boys who wanted Rose would leave messages with Carey.
Philip at first was reserved. He would not let himself yield entirely
to the proud joy that filled him; but presently his distrust of the
fates gave way before a wild happiness. He thought Rose the most
wonderful fellow he had ever seen. His books now were insignificant; he
could not bother about them when there was something infinitely more
important to occupy him. Rose’s friends used to come in to tea in the
study sometimes or sit about when there was nothing better to do—Rose
liked a crowd and the chance of a rag—and they found that Philip was
quite a decent fellow. Philip was happy.
When the last day of term came he and Rose arranged by which train they
should come back, so that they might meet at the station and have tea
in the town before returning to school. Philip went home with a heavy
heart. He thought of Rose all through the holidays, and his fancy was
active with the things they would do together next term. He was bored
at the vicarage, and when on the last day his uncle put him the usual
question in the usual facetious tone:
“Well, are you glad to be going back to school?”
Philip answered joyfully.
“Rather.”
In order to be sure of meeting Rose at the station he took an earlier
train than he usually did, and he waited about the platform for an
hour. When the train came in from Faversham, where he knew Rose had to
change, he ran along it excitedly. But Rose was not there. He got a
porter to tell him when another train was due, and he waited; but again
he was disappointed; and he was cold and hungry, so he walked, through
side-streets and slums, by a short cut to the school. He found Rose in
the study, with his feet on the chimney-piece, talking eighteen to the
dozen with half a dozen boys who were sitting on whatever there was to
sit on. He shook hands with Philip enthusiastically, but Philip’s face
fell, for he realised that Rose had forgotten all about their
appointment.
“I say, why are you so late?” said Rose. “I thought you were never
coming.”
“You were at the station at half-past four,” said another boy. “I saw
you when I came.”
Philip blushed a little. He did not want Rose to know that he had been
such a fool as to wait for him.
“I had to see about a friend of my people’s,” he invented readily. “I
was asked to see her off.”
But his disappointment made him a little sulky. He sat in silence, and
when spoken to answered in monosyllables. He was making up his mind to
have it out with Rose when they were alone. But when the others had
gone Rose at once came over and sat on the arm of the chair in which
Philip was lounging.
“I say, I’m jolly glad we’re in the same study this term. Ripping,
isn’t it?”
He seemed so genuinely pleased to see Philip that Philip’s annoyance
vanished. They began as if they had not been separated for five minutes
to talk eagerly of the thousand things that interested them.
XIX
At first Philip had been too grateful for Rose’s friendship to make any
demands on him. He took things as they came and enjoyed life. But
presently he began to resent Rose’s universal amiability; he wanted a
more exclusive attachment, and he claimed as a right what before he had
accepted as a favour. He watched jealously Rose’s companionship with
others; and though he knew it was unreasonable could not help sometimes
saying bitter things to him. If Rose spent an hour playing the fool in
another study, Philip would receive him when he returned to his own
with a sullen frown. He would sulk for a day, and he suffered more
because Rose either did not notice his ill-humour or deliberately
ignored it. Not seldom Philip, knowing all the time how stupid he was,
would force a quarrel, and they would not speak to one another for a
couple of days. But Philip could not bear to be angry with him long,
and even when convinced that he was in the right, would apologise
humbly. Then for a week they would be as great friends as ever. But the
best was over, and Philip could see that Rose often walked with him
merely from old habit or from fear of his anger; they had not so much
to say to one another as at first, and Rose was often bored. Philip
felt that his lameness began to irritate him.
Towards the end of the term two or three boys caught scarlet fever, and
there was much talk of sending them all home in order to escape an
epidemic; but the sufferers were isolated, and since no more were
attacked it was supposed that the outbreak was stopped. One of the
stricken was Philip. He remained in hospital through the Easter
holidays, and at the beginning of the summer term was sent home to the
vicarage to get a little fresh air. The Vicar, notwithstanding medical
assurance that the boy was no longer infectious, received him with
suspicion; he thought it very inconsiderate of the doctor to suggest
that his nephew’s convalescence should be spent by the seaside, and
consented to have him in the house only because there was nowhere else
he could go.
Philip went back to school at half-term. He had forgotten the quarrels
he had had with Rose, but remembered only that he was his greatest
friend. He knew that he had been silly. He made up his mind to be more
reasonable. During his illness Rose had sent him in a couple of little
notes, and he had ended each with the words: “Hurry up and come back.”
Philip thought Rose must be looking forward as much to his return as he
was himself to seeing Rose.
He found that owing to the death from scarlet fever of one of the boys
in the Sixth there had been some shifting in the studies and Rose was
no longer in his. It was a bitter disappointment. But as soon as he
arrived he burst into Rose’s study. Rose was sitting at his desk,
working with a boy called Hunter, and turned round crossly as Philip
came in.
“Who the devil’s that?” he cried. And then, seeing Philip: “Oh, it’s
you.”
Philip stopped in embarrassment.
“I thought I’d come in and see how you were.”
“We were just working.”
Hunter broke into the conversation.
“When did you get back?”
“Five minutes ago.”
They sat and looked at him as though he was disturbing them. They
evidently expected him to go quickly. Philip reddened.
“I’ll be off. You might look in when you’ve done,” he said to Rose.
“All right.”
Philip closed the door behind him and limped back to his own study. He
felt frightfully hurt. Rose, far from seeming glad to see him, had
looked almost put out. They might never have been more than
acquaintances. Though he waited in his study, not leaving it for a
moment in case just then Rose should come, his friend never appeared;
and next morning when he went in to prayers he saw Rose and Hunter
singing along arm in arm. What he could not see for himself others told
him. He had forgotten that three months is a long time in a schoolboy’s
life, and though he had passed them in solitude Rose had lived in the
world. Hunter had stepped into the vacant place. Philip found that Rose
was quietly avoiding him. But he was not the boy to accept a situation
without putting it into words; he waited till he was sure Rose was
alone in his study and went in.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Rose looked at him with an embarrassment that made him angry with
Philip.
“Yes, if you want to.”
“It’s very kind of you,” said Philip sarcastically.
“What d’you want?”
“I say, why have you been so rotten since I came back?”
“Oh, don’t be an ass,” said Rose.
“I don’t know what you see in Hunter.”
“That’s my business.”
Philip looked down. He could not bring himself to say what was in his
heart. He was afraid of humiliating himself. Rose got up.
“I’ve got to go to the Gym,” he said.
When he was at the door Philip forced himself to speak.
“I say, Rose, don’t be a perfect beast.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
Rose slammed the door behind him and left Philip alone. Philip shivered
with rage. He went back to his study and turned the conversation over
in his mind. He hated Rose now, he wanted to hurt him, he thought of
biting things he might have said to him. He brooded over the end to
their friendship and fancied that others were talking of it. In his
sensitiveness he saw sneers and wonderings in other fellows’ manner
when they were not bothering their heads with him at all. He imagined
to himself what they were saying.
“After all, it wasn’t likely to last long. I wonder he ever stuck Carey
at all. Blighter!”
To show his indifference he struck up a violent friendship with a boy
called Sharp whom he hated and despised. He was a London boy, with a
loutish air, a heavy fellow with the beginnings of a moustache on his
lip and bushy eyebrows that joined one another across the bridge of his
nose. He had soft hands and manners too suave for his years. He spoke
with the suspicion of a cockney accent. He was one of those boys who
are too slack to play games, and he exercised great ingenuity in making
excuses to avoid such as were compulsory. He was regarded by boys and
masters with a vague dislike, and it was from arrogance that Philip now
sought his society. Sharp in a couple of terms was going to Germany for
a year. He hated school, which he looked upon as an indignity to be
endured till he was old enough to go out into the world. London was all
he cared for, and he had many stories to tell of his doings there
during the holidays. From his conversation—he spoke in a soft,
deep-toned voice—there emerged the vague rumour of the London streets
by night. Philip listened to him at once fascinated and repelled. With
his vivid fancy he seemed to see the surging throng round the pit-door
of theatres, and the glitter of cheap restaurants, bars where men, half
drunk, sat on high stools talking with barmaids; and under the street
lamps the mysterious passing of dark crowds bent upon pleasure. Sharp
lent him cheap novels from Holywell Row, which Philip read in his
cubicle with a sort of wonderful fear.
Once Rose tried to effect a reconciliation. He was a good-natured
fellow, who did not like having enemies.
“I say, Carey, why are you being such a silly ass? It doesn’t do you
any good cutting me and all that.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” answered Philip.
“Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t talk.”
“You bore me,” said Philip.
“Please yourself.”
Rose shrugged his shoulders and left him. Philip was very white, as he
always became when he was moved, and his heart beat violently. When
Rose went away he felt suddenly sick with misery. He did not know why
he had answered in that fashion. He would have given anything to be
friends with Rose. He hated to have quarrelled with him, and now that
he saw he had given him pain he was very sorry. But at the moment he
had not been master of himself. It seemed that some devil had seized
him, forcing him to say bitter things against his will, even though at
the time he wanted to shake hands with Rose and meet him more than
halfway. The desire to wound had been too strong for him. He had wanted
to revenge himself for the pain and the humiliation he had endured. It
was pride: it was folly too, for he knew that Rose would not care at
all, while he would suffer bitterly. The thought came to him that he
would go to Rose, and say:
“I say, I’m sorry I was such a beast. I couldn’t help it. Let’s make it
up.”
But he knew he would never be able to do it. He was afraid that Rose
would sneer at him. He was angry with himself, and when Sharp came in a