Of Human Bondage
actions, all his thoughts, were touched with it. He wrote to her of the
future, the happiness that lay before him, and the gratitude which he
owed her. He asked himself (he had often asked himself before but had
never put it into words) what it was in her that filled him with such
extravagant delight; he did not know; he knew only that when she was
with him he was happy, and when she was away from him the world was on
a sudden cold and gray; he knew only that when he thought of her his
heart seemed to grow big in his body so that it was difficult to
breathe (as if it pressed against his lungs) and it throbbed, so that
the delight of her presence was almost pain; his knees shook, and he
felt strangely weak as though, not having eaten, he were tremulous from
want of food. He looked forward eagerly to her answers. He did not
expect her to write often, for he knew that letter-writing came
difficultly to her; and he was quite content with the clumsy little
note that arrived in reply to four of his. She spoke of the
boarding-house in which she had taken a room, of the weather and the
baby, told him she had been for a walk on the front with a lady-friend
whom she had met in the boarding-house and who had taken such a fancy
to baby, she was going to the theatre on Saturday night, and Brighton
was filling up. It touched Philip because it was so matter-of-fact. The
crabbed style, the formality of the matter, gave him a queer desire to
laugh and to take her in his arms and kiss her.
He went into the examination with happy confidence. There was nothing
in either of the papers that gave him trouble. He knew that he had done
well, and though the second part of the examination was viva voce and
he was more nervous, he managed to answer the questions adequately. He
sent a triumphant telegram to Mildred when the result was announced.
When he got back to his rooms Philip found a letter from her, saying
that she thought it would be better for her to stay another week in
Brighton. She had found a woman who would be glad to take the baby for
seven shillings a week, but she wanted to make inquiries about her, and
she was herself benefiting so much by the sea-air that she was sure a
few days more would do her no end of good. She hated asking Philip for
money, but would he send some by return, as she had had to buy herself
a new hat, she couldn’t go about with her lady-friend always in the
same hat, and her lady-friend was so dressy. Philip had a moment of
bitter disappointment. It took away all his pleasure at getting through
his examination.
“If she loved me one quarter as much as I love her she couldn’t bear to
stay away a day longer than necessary.”
He put the thought away from him quickly; it was pure selfishness; of
course her health was more important than anything else. But he had
nothing to do now; he might spend the week with her in Brighton, and
they could be together all day. His heart leaped at the thought. It
would be amusing to appear before Mildred suddenly with the information
that he had taken a room in the boarding-house. He looked out trains.
But he paused. He was not certain that she would be pleased to see him;
she had made friends in Brighton; he was quiet, and she liked
boisterous joviality; he realised that she amused herself more with
other people than with him. It would torture him if he felt for an
instant that he was in the way. He was afraid to risk it. He dared not
even write and suggest that, with nothing to keep him in town, he would
like to spend the week where he could see her every day. She knew he
had nothing to do; if she wanted him to come she would have asked him
to. He dared not risk the anguish he would suffer if he proposed to
come and she made excuses to prevent him.
He wrote to her next day, sent her a five-pound note, and at the end of
his letter said that if she were very nice and cared to see him for the
week-end he would be glad to run down; but she was by no means to alter
any plans she had made. He awaited her answer with impatience. In it
she said that if she had only known before she could have arranged it,
but she had promised to go to a music-hall on the Saturday night;
besides, it would make the people at the boarding-house talk if he
stayed there. Why did he not come on Sunday morning and spend the day?
They could lunch at the Metropole, and she would take him afterwards to
see the very superior lady-like person who was going to take the baby.
Sunday. He blessed the day because it was fine. As the train approached
Brighton the sun poured through the carriage window. Mildred was
waiting for him on the platform.
“How jolly of you to come and meet me!” he cried, as he seized her
hands.
“You expected me, didn’t you?”
“I hoped you would. I say, how well you’re looking.”
“It’s done me a rare lot of good, but I think I’m wise to stay here as
long as I can. And there are a very nice class of people at the
boarding-house. I wanted cheering up after seeing nobody all these
months. It was dull sometimes.”
She looked very smart in her new hat, a large black straw with a great
many inexpensive flowers on it; and round her neck floated a long boa
of imitation swansdown. She was still very thin, and she stooped a
little when she walked (she had always done that,) but her eyes did not
seem so large; and though she never had any colour, her skin had lost
the earthy look it had. They walked down to the sea. Philip,
remembering he had not walked with her for months, grew suddenly
conscious of his limp and walked stiffly in the attempt to conceal it.
“Are you glad to see me?” he asked, love dancing madly in his heart.
“Of course I am. You needn’t ask that.”
“By the way, Griffiths sends you his love.”
“What cheek!”
He had talked to her a great deal of Griffiths. He had told her how
flirtatious he was and had amused her often with the narration of some
adventure which Griffiths under the seal of secrecy had imparted to
him. Mildred had listened, with some pretence of disgust sometimes, but
generally with curiosity; and Philip, admiringly, had enlarged upon his
friend’s good looks and charm.
“I’m sure you’ll like him just as much as I do. He’s so jolly and
amusing, and he’s such an awfully good sort.”
Philip told her how, when they were perfect strangers, Griffiths had
nursed him through an illness; and in the telling Griffiths’
self-sacrifice lost nothing.
“You can’t help liking him,” said Philip.
“I don’t like good-looking men,” said Mildred. “They’re too conceited
for me.”
“He wants to know you. I’ve talked to him about you an awful lot.”
“What have you said?” asked Mildred.
Philip had no one but Griffiths to talk to of his love for Mildred, and
little by little had told him the whole story of his connection with
her. He described her to him fifty times. He dwelt amorously on every
detail of her appearance, and Griffiths knew exactly how her thin hands
were shaped and how white her face was, and he laughed at Philip when
he talked of the charm of her pale, thin lips.
“By Jove, I’m glad I don’t take things so badly as that,” he said.
“Life wouldn’t be worth living.”
Philip smiled. Griffiths did not know the delight of being so madly in
love that it was like meat and wine and the air one breathed and
whatever else was essential to existence. Griffiths knew that Philip
had looked after the girl while she was having her baby and was now
going away with her.
“Well, I must say you’ve deserved to get something,” he remarked. “It
must have cost you a pretty penny. It’s lucky you can afford it.”
“I can’t,” said Philip. “But what do I care!”
Since it was early for luncheon, Philip and Mildred sat in one of the
shelters on the parade, sunning themselves, and watched the people
pass. There were the Brighton shop-boys who walked in twos and threes,
swinging their canes, and there were the Brighton shop-girls who
tripped along in giggling bunches. They could tell the people who had
come down from London for the day; the keen air gave a fillip to their
weariness. There were many Jews, stout ladies in tight satin dresses
and diamonds, little corpulent men with a gesticulative manner. There
were middle-aged gentlemen spending a week-end in one of the large
hotels, carefully dressed; and they walked industriously after too
substantial a breakfast to give themselves an appetite for too
substantial a luncheon: they exchanged the time of day with friends and
talked of Dr. Brighton or London-by-the-Sea. Here and there a
well-known actor passed, elaborately unconscious of the attention he
excited: sometimes he wore patent leather boots, a coat with an
astrakhan collar, and carried a silver-knobbed stick; and sometimes,
looking as though he had come from a day’s shooting, he strolled in
knickerbockers, and ulster of Harris tweed, and a tweed hat on the back
of his head. The sun shone on the blue sea, and the blue sea was trim
and neat.
After luncheon they went to Hove to see the woman who was to take
charge of the baby. She lived in a small house in a back street, but it
was clean and tidy. Her name was Mrs. Harding. She was an elderly,
stout person, with gray hair and a red, fleshy face. She looked
motherly in her cap, and Philip thought she seemed kind.
“Won’t you find it an awful nuisance to look after a baby?” he asked
her.
She explained that her husband was a curate, a good deal older than
herself, who had difficulty in getting permanent work since vicars
wanted young men to assist them; he earned a little now and then by
doing locums when someone took a holiday or fell ill, and a charitable
institution gave them a small pension; but her life was lonely, it
would be something to do to look after a child, and the few shillings a
week paid for it would help her to keep things going. She promised that
it should be well fed.
“Quite the lady, isn’t she?” said Mildred, when they went away.
They went back to have tea at the Metropole. Mildred liked the crowd
and the band. Philip was tired of talking, and he watched her face as
she looked with keen eyes at the dresses of the women who came in. She
had a peculiar sharpness for reckoning up what things cost, and now and
then she leaned over to him and whispered the result of her
meditations.
“D’you see that aigrette there? That cost every bit of seven guineas.”
Or: “Look at that ermine, Philip. That’s rabbit, that is—that’s not
ermine.” She laughed triumphantly. “I’d know it a mile off.”
Philip smiled happily. He was glad to see her pleasure, and the
ingenuousness of her conversation amused and touched him. The band
played sentimental music.
After dinner they walked down to the station, and Philip took her arm.
He told her what arrangements he had made for their journey to France.
She was to come up to London at the end of the week, but she told him
that she could not go away till the Saturday of the week after that. He
had already engaged a room in a hotel in Paris. He was looking forward
eagerly to taking the tickets.
“You won’t mind going second-class, will you? We mustn’t be
extravagant, and it’ll be all the better if we can do ourselves pretty
well when we get there.”
He had talked to her a hundred times of the Quarter. They would wander
through its pleasant old streets, and they would sit idly in the
charming gardens of the Luxembourg. If the weather was fine perhaps,
when they had had enough of Paris, they might go to Fontainebleau. The
trees would be just bursting into leaf. The green of the forest in
spring was more beautiful than anything he knew; it was like a song,
and it was like the happy pain of love. Mildred listened quietly. He
turned to her and tried to look deep into her eyes.
“You do want to come, don’t you?” he said.
“Of course I do,” she smiled.