Of Human Bondage
out. Leonard Upjohn came to him, while he was making himself a cup of
tea in the kitchen, and said that Cronshaw was complaining of Philip’s
insistence that he should have a doctor.
“Don’t you realise that you’re enjoying a very rare, a very exquisite
privilege? You ought to do everything in your power, surely, to show
your sense of the greatness of your trust.”
“It’s a rare and exquisite privilege which I can ill afford,” said
Philip.
Whenever there was any question of money, Leonard Upjohn assumed a
slightly disdainful expression. His sensitive temperament was offended
by the reference.
“There’s something fine in Cronshaw’s attitude, and you disturb it by
your importunity. You should make allowances for the delicate
imaginings which you cannot feel.”
Philip’s face darkened.
“Let us go in to Cronshaw,” he said frigidly.
The poet was lying on his back, reading a book, with a pipe in his
mouth. The air was musty; and the room, notwithstanding Philip’s
tidying up, had the bedraggled look which seemed to accompany Cronshaw
wherever he went. He took off his spectacles as they came in. Philip
was in a towering rage.
“Upjohn tells me you’ve been complaining to him because I’ve urged you
to have a doctor,” he said. “I want you to have a doctor, because you
may die any day, and if you hadn’t been seen by anyone I shouldn’t be
able to get a certificate. There’d have to be an inquest and I should
be blamed for not calling a doctor in.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. I thought you wanted me to see a doctor for
my sake and not for your own. I’ll see a doctor whenever you like.”
Philip did not answer, but gave an almost imperceptible shrug of the
shoulders. Cronshaw, watching him, gave a little chuckle.
“Don’t look so angry, my dear. I know very well you want to do
everything you can for me. Let’s see your doctor, perhaps he can do
something for me, and at any rate it’ll comfort you.” He turned his
eyes to Upjohn. “You’re a damned fool, Leonard. Why d’you want to worry
the boy? He has quite enough to do to put up with me. You’ll do nothing
more for me than write a pretty article about me after my death. I know
you.”
Next day Philip went to Dr. Tyrell. He felt that he was the sort of man
to be interested by the story, and as soon as Tyrell was free of his
day’s work he accompanied Philip to Kennington. He could only agree
with what Philip had told him. The case was hopeless.
“I’ll take him into the hospital if you like,” he said. “He can have a
small ward.”
“Nothing would induce him to come.”
“You know, he may die any minute, or else he may get another attack of
pneumonia.”
Philip nodded. Dr. Tyrell made one or two suggestions, and promised to
come again whenever Philip wanted him to. He left his address. When
Philip went back to Cronshaw he found him quietly reading. He did not
trouble to inquire what the doctor had said.
“Are you satisfied now, dear boy?” he asked.
“I suppose nothing will induce you to do any of the things Tyrell
advised?”
“Nothing,” smiled Cronshaw.
LXXXV
About a fortnight after this Philip, going home one evening after his
day’s work at the hospital, knocked at the door of Cronshaw’s room. He
got no answer and walked in. Cronshaw was lying huddled up on one side,
and Philip went up to the bed. He did not know whether Cronshaw was
asleep or merely lay there in one of his uncontrollable fits of
irritability. He was surprised to see that his mouth was open. He
touched his shoulder. Philip gave a cry of dismay. He slipped his hand
under Cronshaw’s shirt and felt his heart; he did not know what to do;
helplessly, because he had heard of this being done, he held a
looking-glass in front of his mouth. It startled him to be alone with
Cronshaw. He had his hat and coat still on, and he ran down the stairs
into the street; he hailed a cab and drove to Harley Street. Dr. Tyrell
was in.
“I say, would you mind coming at once? I think Cronshaw’s dead.”
“If he is it’s not much good my coming, is it?”
“I should be awfully grateful if you would. I’ve got a cab at the door.
It’ll only take half an hour.”
Tyrell put on his hat. In the cab he asked him one or two questions.
“He seemed no worse than usual when I left this morning,” said Philip.
“It gave me an awful shock when I went in just now. And the thought of
his dying all alone…. D’you think he knew he was going to die?”
Philip remembered what Cronshaw had said. He wondered whether at that
last moment he had been seized with the terror of death. Philip
imagined himself in such a plight, knowing it was inevitable and with
no one, not a soul, to give an encouraging word when the fear seized
him.
“You’re rather upset,” said Dr. Tyrell.
He looked at him with his bright blue eyes. They were not
unsympathetic. When he saw Cronshaw, he said:
“He must have been dead for some hours. I should think he died in his
sleep. They do sometimes.”
The body looked shrunk and ignoble. It was not like anything human. Dr.
Tyrell looked at it dispassionately. With a mechanical gesture he took
out his watch.
“Well, I must be getting along. I’ll send the certificate round. I
suppose you’ll communicate with the relatives.”
“I don’t think there are any,” said Philip.
“How about the funeral?”
“Oh, I’ll see to that.”
Dr. Tyrell gave Philip a glance. He wondered whether he ought to offer
a couple of sovereigns towards it. He knew nothing of Philip’s
circumstances; perhaps he could well afford the expense; Philip might
think it impertinent if he made any suggestion.
“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he said.
Philip and he went out together, parting on the doorstep, and Philip
went to a telegraph office in order to send a message to Leonard
Upjohn. Then he went to an undertaker whose shop he passed every day on
his way to the hospital. His attention had been drawn to it often by
the three words in silver lettering on a black cloth, which, with two
model coffins, adorned the window: Economy, Celerity, Propriety. They
had always diverted him. The undertaker was a little fat Jew with curly
black hair, long and greasy, in black, with a large diamond ring on a
podgy finger. He received Philip with a peculiar manner formed by the
mingling of his natural blatancy with the subdued air proper to his
calling. He quickly saw that Philip was very helpless and promised to
send round a woman at once to perform the needful offices. His
suggestions for the funeral were very magnificent; and Philip felt
ashamed of himself when the undertaker seemed to think his objections
mean. It was horrible to haggle on such a matter, and finally Philip
consented to an expensiveness which he could ill afford.
“I quite understand, sir,” said the undertaker, “you don’t want any
show and that—I’m not a believer in ostentation myself, mind you—but
you want it done gentlemanly-like. You leave it to me, I’ll do it as
cheap as it can be done, ’aving regard to what’s right and proper. I
can’t say more than that, can I?”
Philip went home to eat his supper, and while he ate the woman came
along to lay out the corpse. Presently a telegram arrived from Leonard
Upjohn.
Shocked and grieved beyond measure. Regret cannot come tonight. Dining
out. With you early tomorrow. Deepest sympathy. Upjohn.
In a little while the woman knocked at the door of the sitting-room.
“I’ve done now, sir. Will you come and look at ’im and see it’s all
right?”
Philip followed her. Cronshaw was lying on his back, with his eyes
closed and his hands folded piously across his chest.
“You ought by rights to ’ave a few flowers, sir.”
“I’ll get some tomorrow.”
She gave the body a glance of satisfaction. She had performed her job,
and now she rolled down her sleeves, took off her apron, and put on her
bonnet. Philip asked her how much he owed her.
“Well, sir, some give me two and sixpence and some give me five
shillings.”
Philip was ashamed to give her less than the larger sum. She thanked
him with just so much effusiveness as was seemly in presence of the
grief he might be supposed to feel, and left him. Philip went back into
his sitting-room, cleared away the remains of his supper, and sat down
to read Walsham’s Surgery. He found it difficult. He felt singularly
nervous. When there was a sound on the stairs he jumped, and his heart
beat violently. That thing in the adjoining room, which had been a man
and now was nothing, frightened him. The silence seemed alive, as if
some mysterious movement were taking place within it; the presence of
death weighed upon these rooms, unearthly and terrifying: Philip felt a
sudden horror for what had once been his friend. He tried to force
himself to read, but presently pushed away his book in despair. What
troubled him was the absolute futility of the life which had just
ended. It did not matter if Cronshaw was alive or dead. It would have
been just as well if he had never lived. Philip thought of Cronshaw
young; and it needed an effort of imagination to picture him slender,
with a springing step, and with hair on his head, buoyant and hopeful.
Philip’s rule of life, to follow one’s instincts with due regard to the
policeman round the corner, had not acted very well there: it was
because Cronshaw had done this that he had made such a lamentable
failure of existence. It seemed that the instincts could not be
trusted. Philip was puzzled, and he asked himself what rule of life was
there, if that one was useless, and why people acted in one way rather
than in another. They acted according to their emotions, but their
emotions might be good or bad; it seemed just a chance whether they led
to triumph or disaster. Life seemed an inextricable confusion. Men
hurried hither and thither, urged by forces they knew not; and the
purpose of it all escaped them; they seemed to hurry just for
hurrying’s sake.
Next morning Leonard Upjohn appeared with a small wreath of laurel. He
was pleased with his idea of crowning the dead poet with this; and
attempted, notwithstanding Philip’s disapproving silence, to fix it on
the bald head; but the wreath fitted grotesquely. It looked like the
brim of a hat worn by a low comedian in a music-hall.
“I’ll put it over his heart instead,” said Upjohn.
“You’ve put it on his stomach,” remarked Philip.
Upjohn gave a thin smile.
“Only a poet knows where lies a poet’s heart,” he answered.
They went back into the sitting-room, and Philip told him what
arrangements he had made for the funeral.
“I hoped you’ve spared no expense. I should like the hearse to be
followed by a long string of empty coaches, and I should like the
horses to wear tall nodding plumes, and there should be a vast number
of mutes with long streamers on their hats. I like the thought of all
those empty coaches.”
“As the cost of the funeral will apparently fall on me and I’m not over
flush just now, I’ve tried to make it as moderate as possible.”
“But, my dear fellow, in that case, why didn’t you get him a pauper’s
funeral? There would have been something poetic in that. You have an
unerring instinct for mediocrity.”
Philip flushed a little, but did not answer; and next day he and Upjohn
followed the hearse in the one carriage which Philip had ordered.
Lawson, unable to come, had sent a wreath; and Philip, so that the
coffin should not seem too neglected, had bought a couple. On the way
back the coachman whipped up his horses. Philip was dog-tired and
presently went to sleep. He was awakened by Upjohn’s voice.
“It’s rather lucky the poems haven’t come out yet. I think we’d better
hold them back a bit and I’ll write a preface. I began thinking of it
during the drive to the cemetery. I believe I can do something rather
good. Anyhow I’ll start with an article in The Saturday.”