Of Human Bondage
from no inconvenience till her child was born. But she had never been
used to the management of money, and was unable to adapt her
expenditure to her altered circumstances. The little she had slipped
through her fingers in one way and another, so that now, when all
expenses were paid, not much more than two thousand pounds remained to
support the boy till he was able to earn his own living. It was
impossible to explain all this to Philip and he was sobbing still.
“You’d better go to Emma,” Mr. Carey said, feeling that she could
console the child better than anyone.
Without a word Philip slipped off his uncle’s knee, but Mr. Carey
stopped him.
“We must go tomorrow, because on Saturday I’ve got to prepare my
sermon, and you must tell Emma to get your things ready today. You can
bring all your toys. And if you want anything to remember your father
and mother by you can take one thing for each of them. Everything else
is going to be sold.”
The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was unused to work, and he
turned to his correspondence with resentment. On one side of the desk
was a bundle of bills, and these filled him with irritation. One
especially seemed preposterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey’s death
Emma had ordered from the florist masses of white flowers for the room
in which the dead woman lay. It was sheer waste of money. Emma took far
too much upon herself. Even if there had been no financial necessity,
he would have dismissed her.
But Philip went to her, and hid his face in her bosom, and wept as
though his heart would break. And she, feeling that he was almost her
own son—she had taken him when he was a month old—consoled him with
soft words. She promised that she would come and see him sometimes, and
that she would never forget him; and she told him about the country he
was going to and about her own home in Devonshire—her father kept a
turnpike on the high-road that led to Exeter, and there were pigs in
the sty, and there was a cow, and the cow had just had a calf—till
Philip forgot his tears and grew excited at the thought of his
approaching journey. Presently she put him down, for there was much to
be done, and he helped her to lay out his clothes on the bed. She sent
him into the nursery to gather up his toys, and in a little while he
was playing happily.
But at last he grew tired of being alone and went back to the bed-room,
in which Emma was now putting his things into a big tin box; he
remembered then that his uncle had said he might take something to
remember his father and mother by. He told Emma and asked her what he
should take.
“You’d better go into the drawing-room and see what you fancy.”
“Uncle William’s there.”
“Never mind that. They’re your own things now.”
Philip went downstairs slowly and found the door open. Mr. Carey had
left the room. Philip walked slowly round. They had been in the house
so short a time that there was little in it that had a particular
interest to him. It was a stranger’s room, and Philip saw nothing that
struck his fancy. But he knew which were his mother’s things and which
belonged to the landlord, and presently fixed on a little clock that he
had once heard his mother say she liked. With this he walked again
rather disconsolately upstairs. Outside the door of his mother’s
bed-room he stopped and listened. Though no one had told him not to go
in, he had a feeling that it would be wrong to do so; he was a little
frightened, and his heart beat uncomfortably; but at the same time
something impelled him to turn the handle. He turned it very gently, as
if to prevent anyone within from hearing, and then slowly pushed the
door open. He stood on the threshold for a moment before he had the
courage to enter. He was not frightened now, but it seemed strange. He
closed the door behind him. The blinds were drawn, and the room, in the
cold light of a January afternoon, was dark. On the dressing-table were
Mrs. Carey’s brushes and the hand mirror. In a little tray were
hairpins. There was a photograph of himself on the chimney-piece and
one of his father. He had often been in the room when his mother was
not in it, but now it seemed different. There was something curious in
the look of the chairs. The bed was made as though someone were going
to sleep in it that night, and in a case on the pillow was a
night-dress.
Philip opened a large cupboard filled with dresses and, stepping in,
took as many of them as he could in his arms and buried his face in
them. They smelt of the scent his mother used. Then he pulled open the
drawers, filled with his mother’s things, and looked at them: there
were lavender bags among the linen, and their scent was fresh and
pleasant. The strangeness of the room left it, and it seemed to him
that his mother had just gone out for a walk. She would be in presently
and would come upstairs to have nursery tea with him. And he seemed to
feel her kiss on his lips.
It was not true that he would never see her again. It was not true
simply because it was impossible. He climbed up on the bed and put his
head on the pillow. He lay there quite still.
IV
Philip parted from Emma with tears, but the journey to Blackstable
amused him, and, when they arrived, he was resigned and cheerful.
Blackstable was sixty miles from London. Giving their luggage to a
porter, Mr. Carey set out to walk with Philip to the vicarage; it took
them little more than five minutes, and, when they reached it, Philip
suddenly remembered the gate. It was red and five-barred: it swung both
ways on easy hinges; and it was possible, though forbidden, to swing
backwards and forwards on it. They walked through the garden to the
front-door. This was only used by visitors and on Sundays, and on
special occasions, as when the Vicar went up to London or came back.
The traffic of the house took place through a side-door, and there was
a back door as well for the gardener and for beggars and tramps. It was
a fairly large house of yellow brick, with a red roof, built about five
and twenty years before in an ecclesiastical style. The front-door was
like a church porch, and the drawing-room windows were gothic.
Mrs. Carey, knowing by what train they were coming, waited in the
drawing-room and listened for the click of the gate. When she heard it
she went to the door.
“There’s Aunt Louisa,” said Mr. Carey, when he saw her. “Run and give
her a kiss.”
Philip started to run, awkwardly, trailing his club-foot, and then
stopped. Mrs. Carey was a little, shrivelled woman of the same age as
her husband, with a face extraordinarily filled with deep wrinkles, and
pale blue eyes. Her gray hair was arranged in ringlets according to the
fashion of her youth. She wore a black dress, and her only ornament was
a gold chain, from which hung a cross. She had a shy manner and a
gentle voice.
“Did you walk, William?” she said, almost reproachfully, as she kissed
her husband.
“I didn’t think of it,” he answered, with a glance at his nephew.
“It didn’t hurt you to walk, Philip, did it?” she asked the child.
“No. I always walk.”
He was a little surprised at their conversation. Aunt Louisa told him
to come in, and they entered the hall. It was paved with red and yellow
tiles, on which alternately were a Greek Cross and the Lamb of God. An
imposing staircase led out of the hall. It was of polished pine, with a
peculiar smell, and had been put in because fortunately, when the
church was reseated, enough wood remained over. The balusters were
decorated with emblems of the Four Evangelists.
“I’ve had the stove lighted as I thought you’d be cold after your
journey,” said Mrs. Carey.
It was a large black stove that stood in the hall and was only lighted
if the weather was very bad and the Vicar had a cold. It was not
lighted if Mrs. Carey had a cold. Coal was expensive. Besides, Mary
Ann, the maid, didn’t like fires all over the place. If they wanted all
them fires they must keep a second girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs.
Carey lived in the dining-room so that one fire should do, and in the
summer they could not get out of the habit, so the drawing-room was
used only by Mr. Carey on Sunday afternoons for his nap. But every
Saturday he had a fire in the study so that he could write his sermon.
Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into a tiny bed-room
that looked out on the drive. Immediately in front of the window was a
large tree, which Philip remembered now because the branches were so
low that it was possible to climb quite high up it.
“A small room for a small boy,” said Mrs. Carey. “You won’t be
frightened at sleeping alone?”
“Oh, no.”
On his first visit to the vicarage he had come with his nurse, and Mrs.
Carey had had little to do with him. She looked at him now with some
uncertainty.
“Can you wash your own hands, or shall I wash them for you?”
“I can wash myself,” he answered firmly.
“Well, I shall look at them when you come down to tea,” said Mrs.
Carey.
She knew nothing about children. After it was settled that Philip
should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she
should treat him; she was anxious to do her duty; but now he was there
she found herself just as shy of him as he was of her. She hoped he
would not be noisy and rough, because her husband did not like rough
and noisy boys. Mrs. Carey made an excuse to leave Philip alone, but in
a moment came back and knocked at the door; she asked him, without
coming in, if he could pour out the water himself. Then she went
downstairs and rang the bell for tea.
The dining-room, large and well-proportioned, had windows on two sides
of it, with heavy curtains of red rep; there was a big table in the
middle; and at one end an imposing mahogany sideboard with a
looking-glass in it. In one corner stood a harmonium. On each side of
the fireplace were chairs covered in stamped leather, each with an
antimacassar; one had arms and was called the husband, and the other
had none and was called the wife. Mrs. Carey never sat in the
arm-chair: she said she preferred a chair that was not too comfortable;
there was always a lot to do, and if her chair had had arms she might
not be so ready to leave it.
Mr. Carey was making up the fire when Philip came in, and he pointed
out to his nephew that there were two pokers. One was large and bright
and polished and unused, and was called the Vicar; and the other, which
was much smaller and had evidently passed through many fires, was
called the Curate.
“What are we waiting for?” said Mr. Carey.
“I told Mary Ann to make you an egg. I thought you’d be hungry after
your journey.”
Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Blackstable very tiring.
She seldom travelled herself, for the living was only three hundred a
year, and, when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money
for two, he went by himself. He was very fond of Church Congresses and
usually managed to go up to London once a year; and once he had been to
Paris for the exhibition, and two or three times to Switzerland. Mary
Ann brought in the egg, and they sat down. The chair was much too low
for Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey nor his wife knew what
to do.
“I’ll put some books under him,” said Mary Ann.
She took from the top of the harmonium the large Bible and the
prayer-book from which the Vicar was accustomed to read prayers, and
put them on Philip’s chair.
“Oh, William, he can’t sit on the Bible,” said Mrs. Carey, in a shocked
tone. “Couldn’t you get him some books out of the study?”
Mr. Carey considered the question for an instant.
“I don’t think it matters this once if you put the prayer-book on the
top, Mary Ann,” he said. “The book of Common Prayer is the composition