Of Human Bondage
fifty shares and sold them at the half-crown profit he had suggested.
The commission note was to follow next day. For one moment Philip was
furious with Mildred for her cruel jest, but then he could only think
of his joy.
“It makes such a difference to me,” he cried. “I’ll stand you a new
dress if you like.”
“I want it badly enough,” she answered.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to be operated upon at
the end of July.”
“Why, have you got something the matter with you?” she interrupted.
It struck her that an illness she did not know might explain what had
so much puzzled her. He flushed, for he hated to refer to his
deformity.
“No, but they think they can do something to my foot. I couldn’t spare
the time before, but now it doesn’t matter so much. I shall start my
dressing in October instead of next month. I shall only be in hospital
a few weeks and then we can go away to the seaside for the rest of the
summer. It’ll do us all good, you and the baby and me.”
“Oh, let’s go to Brighton, Philip, I like Brighton, you get such a nice
class of people there.” Philip had vaguely thought of some little
fishing village in Cornwall, but as she spoke it occurred to him that
Mildred would be bored to death there.
“I don’t mind where we go as long as I get the sea.”
He did not know why, but he had suddenly an irresistible longing for
the sea. He wanted to bathe, and he thought with delight of splashing
about in the salt water. He was a good swimmer, and nothing exhilarated
him like a rough sea.
“I say, it will be jolly,” he cried.
“It’ll be like a honeymoon, won’t it?” she said. “How much can I have
for my new dress, Phil?”
XCIV
Philip asked Mr. Jacobs, the assistant-surgeon for whom he had dressed,
to do the operation. Jacobs accepted with pleasure, since he was
interested just then in neglected talipes and was getting together
materials for a paper. He warned Philip that he could not make his foot
like the other, but he thought he could do a good deal; and though he
would always limp he would be able to wear a boot less unsightly than
that which he had been accustomed to. Philip remembered how he had
prayed to a God who was able to remove mountains for him who had faith,
and he smiled bitterly.
“I don’t expect a miracle,” he answered.
“I think you’re wise to let me try what I can do. You’ll find a
club-foot rather a handicap in practice. The layman is full of fads,
and he doesn’t like his doctor to have anything the matter with him.”
Philip went into a ‘small ward’, which was a room on the landing,
outside each ward, reserved for special cases. He remained there a
month, for the surgeon would not let him go till he could walk; and,
bearing the operation very well, he had a pleasant enough time. Lawson
and Athelny came to see him, and one day Mrs. Athelny brought two of
her children; students whom he knew looked in now and again to have a
chat; Mildred came twice a week. Everyone was very kind to him, and
Philip, always surprised when anyone took trouble with him, was touched
and grateful. He enjoyed the relief from care; he need not worry there
about the future, neither whether his money would last out nor whether
he would pass his final examinations; and he could read to his heart’s
content. He had not been able to read much of late, since Mildred
disturbed him: she would make an aimless remark when he was trying to
concentrate his attention, and would not be satisfied unless he
answered; whenever he was comfortably settled down with a book she
would want something done and would come to him with a cork she could
not draw or a hammer to drive in a nail.
They settled to go to Brighton in August. Philip wanted to take
lodgings, but Mildred said that she would have to do housekeeping, and
it would only be a holiday for her if they went to a boarding-house.
“I have to see about the food every day at home, I get that sick of it
I want a thorough change.”
Philip agreed, and it happened that Mildred knew of a boarding-house at
Kemp Town where they would not be charged more than twenty-five
shillings a week each. She arranged with Philip to write about rooms,
but when he got back to Kennington he found that she had done nothing.
He was irritated.
“I shouldn’t have thought you had so much to do as all that,” he said.
“Well, I can’t think of everything. It’s not my fault if I forget, is
it?”
Philip was so anxious to get to the sea that he would not wait to
communicate with the mistress of the boarding-house.
“We’ll leave the luggage at the station and go to the house and see if
they’ve got rooms, and if they have we can just send an outside porter
for our traps.”
“You can please yourself,” said Mildred stiffly.
She did not like being reproached, and, retiring huffily into a haughty
silence, she sat by listlessly while Philip made the preparations for
their departure. The little flat was hot and stuffy under the August
sun, and from the road beat up a malodorous sultriness. As he lay in
his bed in the small ward with its red, distempered walls he had longed
for fresh air and the splashing of the sea against his breast. He felt
he would go mad if he had to spend another night in London. Mildred
recovered her good temper when she saw the streets of Brighton crowded
with people making holiday, and they were both in high spirits as they
drove out to Kemp Town. Philip stroked the baby’s cheek.
“We shall get a very different colour into them when we’ve been down
here a few days,” he said, smiling.
They arrived at the boarding-house and dismissed the cab. An untidy
maid opened the door and, when Philip asked if they had rooms, said she
would inquire. She fetched her mistress. A middle-aged woman, stout and
business-like, came downstairs, gave them the scrutinising glance of
her profession, and asked what accommodation they required.
“Two single rooms, and if you’ve got such a thing we’d rather like a
cot in one of them.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t got that. I’ve got one nice large double room,
and I could let you have a cot.”
“I don’t think that would do,” said Philip.
“I could give you another room next week. Brighton’s very full just
now, and people have to take what they can get.”
“If it were only for a few days, Philip, I think we might be able to
manage,” said Mildred.
“I think two rooms would be more convenient. Can you recommend any
other place where they take boarders?”
“I can, but I don’t suppose they’d have room any more than I have.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving me the address.”
The house the stout woman suggested was in the next street, and they
walked towards it. Philip could walk quite well, though he had to lean
on a stick, and he was rather weak. Mildred carried the baby. They went
for a little in silence, and then he saw she was crying. It annoyed
him, and he took no notice, but she forced his attention.
“Lend me a hanky, will you? I can’t get at mine with baby,” she said in
a voice strangled with sobs, turning her head away from him.
He gave her his handkerchief, but said nothing. She dried her eyes, and
as he did not speak, went on.
“I might be poisonous.”
“Please don’t make a scene in the street,” he said.
“It’ll look so funny insisting on separate rooms like that. What’ll
they think of us?”
“If they knew the circumstances I imagine they’d think us surprisingly
moral,” said Philip.
She gave him a sidelong glance.
“You’re not going to give it away that we’re not married?” she asked
quickly.
“No.”
“Why won’t you live with me as if we were married then?”
“My dear, I can’t explain. I don’t want to humiliate you, but I simply
can’t. I daresay it’s very silly and unreasonable, but it’s stronger
than I am. I loved you so much that now…” he broke off. “After all,
there’s no accounting for that sort of thing.”
“A fat lot you must have loved me!” she exclaimed.
The boarding-house to which they had been directed was kept by a
bustling maiden lady, with shrewd eyes and voluble speech. They could
have one double room for twenty-five shillings a week each, and five
shillings extra for the baby, or they could have two single rooms for a
pound a week more.
“I have to charge that much more,” the woman explained apologetically,
“because if I’m pushed to it I can put two beds even in the single
rooms.”
“I daresay that won’t ruin us. What do you think, Mildred?”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Anything’s good enough for me,” she answered.
Philip passed off her sulky reply with a laugh, and, the landlady
having arranged to send for their luggage, they sat down to rest
themselves. Philip’s foot was hurting him a little, and he was glad to
put it up on a chair.
“I suppose you don’t mind my sitting in the same room with you,” said
Mildred aggressively.
“Don’t let’s quarrel, Mildred,” he said gently.
“I didn’t know you was so well off you could afford to throw away a
pound a week.”
“Don’t be angry with me. I assure you it’s the only way we can live
together at all.”
“I suppose you despise me, that’s it.”
“Of course I don’t. Why should I?”
“It’s so unnatural.”
“Is it? You’re not in love with me, are you?”
“Me? Who d’you take me for?”
“It’s not as if you were a very passionate woman, you’re not that.”
“It’s so humiliating,” she said sulkily.
“Oh, I wouldn’t fuss about that if I were you.”
There were about a dozen people in the boarding-house. They ate in a
narrow, dark room at a long table, at the head of which the landlady
sat and carved. The food was bad. The landlady called it French
cooking, by which she meant that the poor quality of the materials was
disguised by ill-made sauces: plaice masqueraded as sole and New
Zealand mutton as lamb. The kitchen was small and inconvenient, so that
everything was served up lukewarm. The people were dull and
pretentious; old ladies with elderly maiden daughters; funny old
bachelors with mincing ways; pale-faced, middle-aged clerks with wives,
who talked of their married daughters and their sons who were in a very
good position in the Colonies. At table they discussed Miss Corelli’s
latest novel; some of them liked Lord Leighton better than Mr.
Alma-Tadema, and some of them liked Mr. Alma-Tadema better than Lord
Leighton. Mildred soon told the ladies of her romantic marriage with
Philip; and he found himself an object of interest because his family,
county people in a very good position, had cut him off with a shilling
because he married while he was only a stoodent; and Mildred’s father,
who had a large place down Devonshire way, wouldn’t do anything for
them because she had married Philip. That was why they had come to a
boarding-house and had not a nurse for the baby; but they had to have
two rooms because they were both used to a good deal of accommodation
and they didn’t care to be cramped. The other visitors also had
explanations of their presence: one of the single gentlemen generally
went to the Metropole for his holiday, but he liked cheerful company
and you couldn’t get that at one of those expensive hotels; and the old
lady with the middle-aged daughter was having her beautiful house in
London done up and she said to her daughter: “Gwennie, my dear, we must
have a cheap holiday this year,” and so they had come there, though of
course it wasn’t at all the kind of thing they were used to. Mildred
found them all very superior, and she hated a lot of common, rough
people. She liked gentlemen to be gentlemen in every sense of the word.
“When people are gentlemen and ladies,” she said, “I like them to be
gentlemen and ladies.”
The remark seemed cryptic to Philip, but when he heard her say it two
or three times to different persons, and found that it aroused hearty