Of Human Bondage
and rather frightened. He knew little of school life but what he had
read in the stories of The Boy’s Own Paper. He had also read Eric, or
Little by Little.
When they got out of the train at Tercanbury, Philip felt sick with
apprehension, and during the drive in to the town sat pale and silent.
The high brick wall in front of the school gave it the look of a
prison. There was a little door in it, which opened on their ringing;
and a clumsy, untidy man came out and fetched Philip’s tin trunk and
his play-box. They were shown into the drawing-room; it was filled with
massive, ugly furniture, and the chairs of the suite were placed round
the walls with a forbidding rigidity. They waited for the headmaster.
“What’s Mr. Watson like?” asked Philip, after a while.
“You’ll see for yourself.”
There was another pause. Mr. Carey wondered why the headmaster did not
come. Presently Philip made an effort and spoke again.
“Tell him I’ve got a club-foot,” he said.
Before Mr. Carey could speak the door burst open and Mr. Watson swept
into the room. To Philip he seemed gigantic. He was a man of over six
feet high, and broad, with enormous hands and a great red beard; he
talked loudly in a jovial manner; but his aggressive cheerfulness
struck terror in Philip’s heart. He shook hands with Mr. Carey, and
then took Philip’s small hand in his.
“Well, young fellow, are you glad to come to school?” he shouted.
Philip reddened and found no word to answer.
“How old are you?”
“Nine,” said Philip.
“You must say sir,” said his uncle.
“I expect you’ve got a good lot to learn,” the headmaster bellowed
cheerily.
To give the boy confidence he began to tickle him with rough fingers.
Philip, feeling shy and uncomfortable, squirmed under his touch.
“I’ve put him in the small dormitory for the present…. You’ll like
that, won’t you?” he added to Philip. “Only eight of you in there. You
won’t feel so strange.”
Then the door opened, and Mrs. Watson came in. She was a dark woman
with black hair, neatly parted in the middle. She had curiously thick
lips and a small round nose. Her eyes were large and black. There was a
singular coldness in her appearance. She seldom spoke and smiled more
seldom still. Her husband introduced Mr. Carey to her, and then gave
Philip a friendly push towards her.
“This is a new boy, Helen, His name’s Carey.”
Without a word she shook hands with Philip and then sat down, not
speaking, while the headmaster asked Mr. Carey how much Philip knew and
what books he had been working with. The Vicar of Blackstable was a
little embarrassed by Mr. Watson’s boisterous heartiness, and in a
moment or two got up.
“I think I’d better leave Philip with you now.”
“That’s all right,” said Mr. Watson. “He’ll be safe with me. He’ll get
on like a house on fire. Won’t you, young fellow?”
Without waiting for an answer from Philip the big man burst into a
great bellow of laughter. Mr. Carey kissed Philip on the forehead and
went away.
“Come along, young fellow,” shouted Mr. Watson. “I’ll show you the
school-room.”
He swept out of the drawing-room with giant strides, and Philip
hurriedly limped behind him. He was taken into a long, bare room with
two tables that ran along its whole length; on each side of them were
wooden forms.
“Nobody much here yet,” said Mr. Watson. “I’ll just show you the
playground, and then I’ll leave you to shift for yourself.”
Mr. Watson led the way. Philip found himself in a large play-ground
with high brick walls on three sides of it. On the fourth side was an
iron railing through which you saw a vast lawn and beyond this some of
the buildings of King’s School. One small boy was wandering
disconsolately, kicking up the gravel as he walked.
“Hulloa, Venning,” shouted Mr. Watson. “When did you turn up?”
The small boy came forward and shook hands.
“Here’s a new boy. He’s older and bigger than you, so don’t you bully
him.”
The headmaster glared amicably at the two children, filling them with
fear by the roar of his voice, and then with a guffaw left them.
“What’s your name?”
“Carey.”
“What’s your father?”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh! Does your mother wash?”
“My mother’s dead, too.”
Philip thought this answer would cause the boy a certain awkwardness,
but Venning was not to be turned from his facetiousness for so little.
“Well, did she wash?” he went on.
“Yes,” said Philip indignantly.
“She was a washerwoman then?”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“Then she didn’t wash.”
The little boy crowed with delight at the success of his dialectic.
Then he caught sight of Philip’s feet.
“What’s the matter with your foot?”
Philip instinctively tried to withdraw it from sight. He hid it behind
the one which was whole.
“I’ve got a club-foot,” he answered.
“How did you get it?”
“I’ve always had it.”
“Let’s have a look.”
“No.”
“Don’t then.”
The little boy accompanied the words with a sharp kick on Philip’s
shin, which Philip did not expect and thus could not guard against. The
pain was so great that it made him gasp, but greater than the pain was
the surprise. He did not know why Venning kicked him. He had not the
presence of mind to give him a black eye. Besides, the boy was smaller
than he, and he had read in The Boy’s Own Paper that it was a mean
thing to hit anyone smaller than yourself. While Philip was nursing his
shin a third boy appeared, and his tormentor left him. In a little
while he noticed that the pair were talking about him, and he felt they
were looking at his feet. He grew hot and uncomfortable.
But others arrived, a dozen together, and then more, and they began to
talk about their doings during the holidays, where they had been, and
what wonderful cricket they had played. A few new boys appeared, and
with these presently Philip found himself talking. He was shy and
nervous. He was anxious to make himself pleasant, but he could not
think of anything to say. He was asked a great many questions and
answered them all quite willingly. One boy asked him whether he could
play cricket.
“No,” answered Philip. “I’ve got a club-foot.”
The boy looked down quickly and reddened. Philip saw that he felt he
had asked an unseemly question. He was too shy to apologise and looked
at Philip awkwardly.
XI
Next morning when the clanging of a bell awoke Philip he looked round
his cubicle in astonishment. Then a voice sang out, and he remembered
where he was.
“Are you awake, Singer?”
The partitions of the cubicle were of polished pitch-pine, and there
was a green curtain in front. In those days there was little thought of
ventilation, and the windows were closed except when the dormitory was
aired in the morning.
Philip got up and knelt down to say his prayers. It was a cold morning,
and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his
prayers were more acceptable to God if he said them in his nightshirt
than if he waited till he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for
he was beginning to realise that he was the creature of a God who
appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers. Then he washed. There
were two baths for the fifty boarders, and each boy had a bath once a
week. The rest of his washing was done in a small basin on a
wash-stand, which with the bed and a chair, made up the furniture of
each cubicle. The boys chatted gaily while they dressed. Philip was all
ears. Then another bell sounded, and they ran downstairs. They took
their seats on the forms on each side of the two long tables in the
school-room; and Mr. Watson, followed by his wife and the servants,
came in and sat down. Mr. Watson read prayers in an impressive manner,
and the supplications thundered out in his loud voice as though they
were threats personally addressed to each boy. Philip listened with
anxiety. Then Mr. Watson read a chapter from the Bible, and the
servants trooped out. In a moment the untidy youth brought in two large
pots of tea and on a second journey immense dishes of bread and butter.
Philip had a squeamish appetite, and the thick slabs of poor butter on
the bread turned his stomach, but he saw other boys scraping it off and
followed their example. They all had potted meats and such like, which
they had brought in their play-boxes; and some had ‘extras,’ eggs or
bacon, upon which Mr. Watson made a profit. When he had asked Mr. Carey
whether Philip was to have these, Mr. Carey replied that he did not
think boys should be spoilt. Mr. Watson quite agreed with him—he
considered nothing was better than bread and butter for growing
lads—but some parents, unduly pampering their offspring, insisted on
it.
Philip noticed that ‘extras’ gave boys a certain consideration and made
up his mind, when he wrote to Aunt Louisa, to ask for them.
After breakfast the boys wandered out into the play-ground. Here the
day-boys were gradually assembling. They were sons of the local clergy,
of the officers at the Depot, and of such manufacturers or men of
business as the old town possessed. Presently a bell rang, and they all
trooped into school. This consisted of a large, long room at opposite
ends of which two under-masters conducted the second and third forms,
and of a smaller one, leading out of it, used by Mr. Watson, who taught
the first form. To attach the preparatory to the senior school these
three classes were known officially, on speech days and in reports, as
upper, middle, and lower second. Philip was put in the last. The
master, a red-faced man with a pleasant voice, was called Rice; he had
a jolly manner with boys, and the time passed quickly. Philip was
surprised when it was a quarter to eleven and they were let out for ten
minutes’ rest.
The whole school rushed noisily into the play-ground. The new boys were
told to go into the middle, while the others stationed themselves along
opposite walls. They began to play Pig in the Middle. The old boys ran
from wall to wall while the new boys tried to catch them: when one was
seized and the mystic words said—one, two, three, and a pig for me—he
became a prisoner and, turning sides, helped to catch those who were
still free. Philip saw a boy running past and tried to catch him, but
his limp gave him no chance; and the runners, taking their opportunity,
made straight for the ground he covered. Then one of them had the
brilliant idea of imitating Philip’s clumsy run. Other boys saw it and
began to laugh; then they all copied the first; and they ran round
Philip, limping grotesquely, screaming in their treble voices with
shrill laughter. They lost their heads with the delight of their new
amusement, and choked with helpless merriment. One of them tripped
Philip up and he fell, heavily as he always fell, and cut his knee.
They laughed all the louder when he got up. A boy pushed him from
behind, and he would have fallen again if another had not caught him.
The game was forgotten in the entertainment of Philip’s deformity. One
of them invented an odd, rolling limp that struck the rest as supremely
ridiculous, and several of the boys lay down on the ground and rolled
about in laughter: Philip was completely scared. He could not make out
why they were laughing at him. His heart beat so that he could hardly
breathe, and he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life.
He stood still stupidly while the boys ran round him, mimicking and
laughing; they shouted to him to try and catch them; but he did not
move. He did not want them to see him run any more. He was using all
his strength to prevent himself from crying.
Suddenly the bell rang, and they all trooped back to school. Philip’s
knee was bleeding, and he was dusty and dishevelled. For some minutes
Mr. Rice could not control his form. They were excited still by the