Of Human Bondage
America. Clutton had disappeared. He had come to the conclusion that a
man had no chance of doing anything so long as he was in contact with
art and artists: the only thing was to get right away. To make the step
easier he had quarrelled with all his friends in Paris. He developed a
talent for telling them home truths, which made them bear with
fortitude his declaration that he had done with that city and was
settling in Gerona, a little town in the north of Spain which had
attracted him when he saw it from the train on his way to Barcelona. He
was living there now alone.
“I wonder if he’ll ever do any good,” said Philip.
He was interested in the human side of that struggle to express
something which was so obscure in the man’s mind that he was become
morbid and querulous. Philip felt vaguely that he was himself in the
same case, but with him it was the conduct of his life as a whole that
perplexed him. That was his means of self-expression, and what he must
do with it was not clear. But he had no time to continue with this
train of thought, for Lawson poured out a frank recital of his affair
with Ruth Chalice. She had left him for a young student who had just
come from England, and was behaving in a scandalous fashion. Lawson
really thought someone ought to step in and save the young man. She
would ruin him. Philip gathered that Lawson’s chief grievance was that
the rupture had come in the middle of a portrait he was painting.
“Women have no real feeling for art,” he said. “They only pretend they
have.” But he finished philosophically enough: “However, I got four
portraits out of her, and I’m not sure if the last I was working on
would ever have been a success.”
Philip envied the easy way in which the painter managed his love
affairs. He had passed eighteen months pleasantly enough, had got an
excellent model for nothing, and had parted from her at the end with no
great pang.
“And what about Cronshaw?” asked Philip.
“Oh, he’s done for,” answered Lawson, with the cheerful callousness of
his youth. “He’ll be dead in six months. He got pneumonia last winter.
He was in the English hospital for seven weeks, and when he came out
they told him his only chance was to give up liquor.”
“Poor devil,” smiled the abstemious Philip.
“He kept off for a bit. He used to go to the Lilas all the same, he
couldn’t keep away from that, but he used to drink hot milk, avec de la
fleur d’oranger, and he was damned dull.”
“I take it you did not conceal the fact from him.”
“Oh, he knew it himself. A little while ago he started on whiskey
again. He said he was too old to turn over any new leaves. He would
rather be happy for six months and die at the end of it than linger on
for five years. And then I think he’s been awfully hard up lately. You
see, he didn’t earn anything while he was ill, and the slut he lives
with has been giving him a rotten time.”
“I remember, the first time I saw him I admired him awfully,” said
Philip. “I thought he was wonderful. It is sickening that vulgar,
middle-class virtue should pay.”
“Of course he was a rotter. He was bound to end in the gutter sooner or
later,” said Lawson.
Philip was hurt because Lawson would not see the pity of it. Of course
it was cause and effect, but in the necessity with which one follows
the other lay all tragedy of life.
“Oh, I’d forgotten,” said Lawson. “Just after you left he sent round a
present for you. I thought you’d be coming back and I didn’t bother
about it, and then I didn’t think it worth sending on; but it’ll come
over to London with the rest of my things, and you can come to my
studio one day and fetch it away if you want it.”
“You haven’t told me what it is yet.”
“Oh, it’s only a ragged little bit of carpet. I shouldn’t think it’s
worth anything. I asked him one day what the devil he’d sent the filthy
thing for. He told me he’d seen it in a shop in the Rue de Rennes and
bought it for fifteen francs. It appears to be a Persian rug. He said
you’d asked him the meaning of life and that was the answer. But he was
very drunk.”
Philip laughed.
“Oh yes, I know. I’ll take it. It was a favourite wheeze of his. He
said I must find out for myself, or else the answer meant nothing.”
LXVI
Philip worked well and easily; he had a good deal to do, since he was
taking in July the three parts of the First Conjoint examination, two
of which he had failed in before; but he found life pleasant. He made a
new friend. Lawson, on the lookout for models, had discovered a girl
who was understudying at one of the theatres, and in order to induce
her to sit to him arranged a little luncheon-party one Sunday. She
brought a chaperon with her; and to her Philip, asked to make a fourth,
was instructed to confine his attentions. He found this easy, since she
turned out to be an agreeable chatterbox with an amusing tongue. She
asked Philip to go and see her; she had rooms in Vincent Square, and
was always in to tea at five o’clock; he went, was delighted with his
welcome, and went again. Mrs. Nesbit was not more than twenty-five,
very small, with a pleasant, ugly face; she had very bright eyes, high
cheekbones, and a large mouth: the excessive contrasts of her colouring
reminded one of a portrait by one of the modern French painters; her
skin was very white, her cheeks were very red, her thick eyebrows, her
hair, were very black. The effect was odd, a little unnatural, but far
from unpleasing. She was separated from her husband and earned her
living and her child’s by writing penny novelettes. There were one or
two publishers who made a specialty of that sort of thing, and she had
as much work as she could do. It was ill-paid, she received fifteen
pounds for a story of thirty thousand words; but she was satisfied.
“After all, it only costs the reader twopence,” she said, “and they
like the same thing over and over again. I just change the names and
that’s all. When I’m bored I think of the washing and the rent and
clothes for baby, and I go on again.”
Besides, she walked on at various theatres where they wanted supers and
earned by this when in work from sixteen shillings to a guinea a week.
At the end of her day she was so tired that she slept like a top. She
made the best of her difficult lot. Her keen sense of humour enabled
her to get amusement out of every vexatious circumstance. Sometimes
things went wrong, and she found herself with no money at all; then her
trifling possessions found their way to a pawnshop in the Vauxhall
Bridge Road, and she ate bread and butter till things grew brighter.
She never lost her cheerfulness.
Philip was interested in her shiftless life, and she made him laugh
with the fantastic narration of her struggles. He asked her why she did
not try her hand at literary work of a better sort, but she knew that
she had no talent, and the abominable stuff she turned out by the
thousand words was not only tolerably paid, but was the best she could
do. She had nothing to look forward to but a continuation of the life
she led. She seemed to have no relations, and her friends were as poor
as herself.
“I don’t think of the future,” she said. “As long as I have enough
money for three weeks’ rent and a pound or two over for food I never
bother. Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as
well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something
always happens.”
Soon Philip grew in the habit of going in to tea with her every day,
and so that his visits might not embarrass her he took in a cake or a
pound of butter or some tea. They started to call one another by their
Christian names. Feminine sympathy was new to him, and he delighted in
someone who gave a willing ear to all his troubles. The hours went
quickly. He did not hide his admiration for her. She was a delightful
companion. He could not help comparing her with Mildred; and he
contrasted with the one’s obstinate stupidity, which refused interest
to everything she did not know, the other’s quick appreciation and
ready intelligence. His heart sank when he thought that he might have
been tied for life to such a woman as Mildred. One evening he told
Norah the whole story of his love. It was not one to give him much
reason for self-esteem, and it was very pleasant to receive such
charming sympathy.
“I think you’re well out of it,” she said, when he had finished.
She had a funny way at times of holding her head on one side like an
Aberdeen puppy. She was sitting in an upright chair, sewing, for she
had no time to do nothing, and Philip had made himself comfortable at
her feet.
“I can’t tell you how heartily thankful I am it’s all over,” he sighed.
“Poor thing, you must have had a rotten time,” she murmured, and by way
of showing her sympathy put her hand on his shoulder.
He took it and kissed it, but she withdrew it quickly.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, with a blush.
“Have you any objection?”
She looked at him for a moment with twinkling eyes, and she smiled.
“No,” she said.
He got up on his knees and faced her. She looked into his eyes
steadily, and her large mouth trembled with a smile.
“Well?” she said.
“You know, you are a ripper. I’m so grateful to you for being nice to
me. I like you so much.”
“Don’t be idiotic,” she said.
Philip took hold of her elbows and drew her towards him. She made no
resistance, but bent forward a little, and he kissed her red lips.
“Why did you do that?” she asked again.
“Because it’s comfortable.”
She did not answer, but a tender look came into her eyes, and she
passed her hand softly over his hair.
“You know, it’s awfully silly of you to behave like this. We were such
good friends. It would be so jolly to leave it at that.”
“If you really want to appeal to my better nature,” replied Philip,
“you’ll do well not to stroke my cheek while you’re doing it.”
She gave a little chuckle, but she did not stop.
“It’s very wrong of me, isn’t it?” she said.
Philip, surprised and a little amused, looked into her eyes, and as he
looked he saw them soften and grow liquid, and there was an expression
in them that enchanted him. His heart was suddenly stirred, and tears
came to his eyes.
“Norah, you’re not fond of me, are you?” he asked, incredulously.
“You clever boy, you ask such stupid questions.”
“Oh, my dear, it never struck me that you could be.”
He flung his arms round her and kissed her, while she, laughing,
blushing, and crying, surrendered herself willingly to his embrace.
Presently he released her and sitting back on his heels looked at her
curiously.
“Well, I’m blowed!” he said.
“Why?”
“I’m so surprised.”
“And pleased?”
“Delighted,” he cried with all his heart, “and so proud and so happy
and so grateful.”
He took her hands and covered them with kisses. This was the beginning
for Philip of a happiness which seemed both solid and durable. They
became lovers but remained friends. There was in Norah a maternal
instinct which received satisfaction in her love for Philip; she wanted
someone to pet, and scold, and make a fuss of; she had a domestic
temperament and found pleasure in looking after his health and his
linen. She pitied his deformity, over which he was so sensitive, and
her pity expressed itself instinctively in tenderness. She was young,
strong, and healthy, and it seemed quite natural to her to give her
love. She had high spirits and a merry soul. She liked Philip because
he laughed with her at all the amusing things in life that caught her
fancy, and above all she liked him because he was he.
When she told him this he answered gaily:
“Nonsense. You like me because I’m a silent person and never want to
get a word in.”
Philip did not love her at all. He was extremely fond of her, glad to