Of Human Bondage
back to the fireplace. He was much below the middle height, but his
large head, which seemed to hang loosely on his body, gave him an odd
ungainliness. His features were wide and flattened, and he had
prominent, pale eyes; his thin hair was sandy; he wore whiskers that
grew unevenly on his face, and in places where you would have expected
the hair to grow thickly there was no hair at all. His skin was pasty
and yellow. He held out his hand to Philip, and when he smiled showed
badly decayed teeth. He spoke with a patronising and at the same time a
timid air, as though he sought to assume an importance which he did not
feel. He said he hoped Philip would like the work; there was a good
deal of drudgery about it, but when you got used to it, it was
interesting; and one made money, that was the chief thing, wasn’t it?
He laughed with his odd mixture of superiority and shyness.
“Mr. Carter will be here presently,” he said. “He’s a little late on
Monday mornings sometimes. I’ll call you when he comes. In the meantime
I must give you something to do. Do you know anything about
book-keeping or accounts?”
“I’m afraid not,” answered Philip.
“I didn’t suppose you would. They don’t teach you things at school that
are much use in business, I’m afraid.” He considered for a moment. “I
think I can find you something to do.”
He went into the next room and after a little while came out with a
large cardboard box. It contained a vast number of letters in great
disorder, and he told Philip to sort them out and arrange them
alphabetically according to the names of the writers.
“I’ll take you to the room in which the articled clerk generally sits.
There’s a very nice fellow in it. His name is Watson. He’s a son of
Watson, Crag, and Thompson—you know—the brewers. He’s spending a year
with us to learn business.”
Mr. Goodworthy led Philip through the dingy office, where now six or
eight clerks were working, into a narrow room behind. It had been made
into a separate apartment by a glass partition, and here they found
Watson sitting back in a chair, reading The Sportsman. He was a large,
stout young man, elegantly dressed, and he looked up as Mr. Goodworthy
entered. He asserted his position by calling the managing clerk
Goodworthy. The managing clerk objected to the familiarity, and
pointedly called him Mr. Watson, but Watson, instead of seeing that it
was a rebuke, accepted the title as a tribute to his gentlemanliness.
“I see they’ve scratched Rigoletto,” he said to Philip, as soon as they
were left alone.
“Have they?” said Philip, who knew nothing about horse-racing.
He looked with awe upon Watson’s beautiful clothes. His tail-coat
fitted him perfectly, and there was a valuable pin artfully stuck in
the middle of an enormous tie. On the chimney-piece rested his tall
hat; it was saucy and bell-shaped and shiny. Philip felt himself very
shabby. Watson began to talk of hunting—it was such an infernal bore
having to waste one’s time in an infernal office, he would only be able
to hunt on Saturdays—and shooting: he had ripping invitations all over
the country and of course he had to refuse them. It was infernal luck,
but he wasn’t going to put up with it long; he was only in this
internal hole for a year, and then he was going into the business, and
he would hunt four days a week and get all the shooting there was.
“You’ve got five years of it, haven’t you?” he said, waving his arm
round the tiny room.
“I suppose so,” said Philip.
“I daresay I shall see something of you. Carter does our accounts, you
know.”
Philip was somewhat overpowered by the young gentleman’s condescension.
At Blackstable they had always looked upon brewing with civil contempt,
the Vicar made little jokes about the beerage, and it was a surprising
experience for Philip to discover that Watson was such an important and
magnificent fellow. He had been to Winchester and to Oxford, and his
conversation impressed the fact upon one with frequency. When he
discovered the details of Philip’s education his manner became more
patronising still.
“Of course, if one doesn’t go to a public school those sort of schools
are the next best thing, aren’t they?”
Philip asked about the other men in the office.
“Oh, I don’t bother about them much, you know,” said Watson. “Carter’s
not a bad sort. We have him to dine now and then. All the rest are
awful bounders.”
Presently Watson applied himself to some work he had in hand, and
Philip set about sorting his letters. Then Mr. Goodworthy came in to
say that Mr. Carter had arrived. He took Philip into a large room next
door to his own. There was a big desk in it, and a couple of big
arm-chairs; a Turkey carpet adorned the floor, and the walls were
decorated with sporting prints. Mr. Carter was sitting at the desk and
got up to shake hands with Philip. He was dressed in a long frock coat.
He looked like a military man; his moustache was waxed, his gray hair
was short and neat, he held himself upright, he talked in a breezy way,
he lived at Enfield. He was very keen on games and the good of the
country. He was an officer in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry and chairman
of the Conservative Association. When he was told that a local magnate
had said no one would take him for a City man, he felt that he had not
lived in vain. He talked to Philip in a pleasant, off-hand fashion. Mr.
Goodworthy would look after him. Watson was a nice fellow, perfect
gentleman, good sportsman—did Philip hunt? Pity, THE sport for
gentlemen. Didn’t have much chance of hunting now, had to leave that to
his son. His son was at Cambridge, he’d sent him to Rugby, fine school
Rugby, nice class of boys there, in a couple of years his son would be
articled, that would be nice for Philip, he’d like his son, thorough
sportsman. He hoped Philip would get on well and like the work, he
mustn’t miss his lectures, they were getting up the tone of the
profession, they wanted gentlemen in it. Well, well, Mr. Goodworthy was
there. If he wanted to know anything Mr. Goodworthy would tell him.
What was his handwriting like? Ah well, Mr. Goodworthy would see about
that.
Philip was overwhelmed by so much gentlemanliness: in East Anglia they
knew who were gentlemen and who weren’t, but the gentlemen didn’t talk
about it.
XXXVII
At first the novelty of the work kept Philip interested. Mr. Carter
dictated letters to him, and he had to make fair copies of statements
of accounts.
Mr. Carter preferred to conduct the office on gentlemanly lines; he
would have nothing to do with typewriting and looked upon shorthand
with disfavour: the office-boy knew shorthand, but it was only Mr.
Goodworthy who made use of his accomplishment. Now and then Philip with
one of the more experienced clerks went out to audit the accounts of
some firm: he came to know which of the clients must be treated with
respect and which were in low water. Now and then long lists of figures
were given him to add up. He attended lectures for his first
examination. Mr. Goodworthy repeated to him that the work was dull at
first, but he would grow used to it. Philip left the office at six and
walked across the river to Waterloo. His supper was waiting for him
when he reached his lodgings and he spent the evening reading. On
Saturday afternoons he went to the National Gallery. Hayward had
recommended to him a guide which had been compiled out of Ruskin’s
works, and with this in hand he went industriously through room after
room: he read carefully what the critic had said about a picture and
then in a determined fashion set himself to see the same things in it.
His Sundays were difficult to get through. He knew no one in London and
spent them by himself. Mr. Nixon, the solicitor, asked him to spend a
Sunday at Hampstead, and Philip passed a happy day with a set of
exuberant strangers; he ate and drank a great deal, took a walk on the
heath, and came away with a general invitation to come again whenever
he liked; but he was morbidly afraid of being in the way, so waited for
a formal invitation. Naturally enough it never came, for with numbers
of friends of their own the Nixons did not think of the lonely, silent
boy whose claim upon their hospitality was so small. So on Sundays he
got up late and took a walk along the tow-path. At Barnes the river is
muddy, dingy, and tidal; it has neither the graceful charm of the
Thames above the locks nor the romance of the crowded stream below
London Bridge. In the afternoon he walked about the common; and that is
gray and dingy too; it is neither country nor town; the gorse is
stunted; and all about is the litter of civilisation. He went to a play
every Saturday night and stood cheerfully for an hour or more at the
gallery-door. It was not worth while to go back to Barnes for the
interval between the closing of the Museum and his meal in an A. B. C.
shop, and the time hung heavily on his hands. He strolled up Bond
Street or through the Burlington Arcade, and when he was tired went and
sat down in the Park or in wet weather in the public library in St.
Martin’s Lane. He looked at the people walking about and envied them
because they had friends; sometimes his envy turned to hatred because
they were happy and he was miserable. He had never imagined that it was
possible to be so lonely in a great city. Sometimes when he was
standing at the gallery-door the man next to him would attempt a
conversation; but Philip had the country boy’s suspicion of strangers
and answered in such a way as to prevent any further acquaintance.
After the play was over, obliged to keep to himself all he thought
about it, he hurried across the bridge to Waterloo. When he got back to
his rooms, in which for economy no fire had been lit, his heart sank.
It was horribly cheerless. He began to loathe his lodgings and the long
solitary evenings he spent in them. Sometimes he felt so lonely that he
could not read, and then he sat looking into the fire hour after hour
in bitter wretchedness.
He had spent three months in London now, and except for that one Sunday
at Hampstead had never talked to anyone but his fellow-clerks. One
evening Watson asked him to dinner at a restaurant and they went to a
music-hall together; but he felt shy and uncomfortable. Watson talked
all the time of things he did not care about, and while he looked upon
Watson as a Philistine he could not help admiring him. He was angry
because Watson obviously set no store on his culture, and with his way
of taking himself at the estimate at which he saw others held him he
began to despise the acquirements which till then had seemed to him not
unimportant. He felt for the first time the humiliation of poverty. His
uncle sent him fourteen pounds a month and he had had to buy a good
many clothes. His evening suit cost him five guineas. He had not dared
tell Watson that it was bought in the Strand. Watson said there was
only one tailor in London.
“I suppose you don’t dance,” said Watson, one day, with a glance at
Philip’s club-foot.
“No,” said Philip.
“Pity. I’ve been asked to bring some dancing men to a ball. I could
have introduced you to some jolly girls.”
Once or twice, hating the thought of going back to Barnes, Philip had
remained in town, and late in the evening wandered through the West End
till he found some house at which there was a party. He stood among the
little group of shabby people, behind the footmen, watching the guests
arrive, and he listened to the music that floated through the window.
Sometimes, notwithstanding the cold, a couple came on to the balcony
and stood for a moment to get some fresh air; and Philip, imagining
that they were in love with one another, turned away and limped along
the street with a heavy hurt. He would never be able to stand in that