Of Human Bondage (106 page)

  The undertaker nodded.

  "Oh, yes, I see. I'll send someone up at once."

  When Philip got back to the vicarage he went up to
the bed-room. Mrs. Foster rose from her chair by the bed-side.

  "He's just as he was when you left," she said.

  She went down to get herself something to eat, and
Philip watched curiously the process of death. There was nothing
human now in the unconscious being that struggled feebly. Sometimes
a muttered ejaculation issued from the loose mouth. The sun beat
down hotly from a cloudless sky, but the trees in the garden were
pleasant and cool. It was a lovely day. A bluebottle buzzed against
the windowpane. Suddenly there was a loud rattle, it made Philip
start, it was horribly frightening; a movement passed through the
limbs and the old man was dead. The machine had run down. The
bluebottle buzzed, buzzed noisily against the windowpane.

  Josiah Graves in his masterful way made
arrangements, becoming but economical, for the funeral; and when it
was over came back to the vicarage with Philip. The will was in his
charge, and with a due sense of the fitness of things he read it to
Philip over an early cup of tea. It was written on half a sheet of
paper and left everything Mr. Carey had to his nephew. There was
the furniture, about eighty pounds at the bank, twenty shares in
the A. B. C. company, a few in Allsop's brewery, some in the Oxford
music-hall, and a few more in a London restaurant. They had been
bought under Mr. Graves' direction, and he told Philip with
satisfaction:

  "You see, people must eat, they will drink, and they
want amusement. You're always safe if you put your money in what
the public thinks necessities."

  His words showed a nice discrimination between the
grossness of the vulgar, which he deplored but accepted, and the
finer taste of the elect. Altogether in investments there was about
five hundred pounds; and to that must be added the balance at the
bank and what the furniture would fetch. It was riches to Philip.
He was not happy but infinitely relieved.

  Mr. Graves left him, after they had discussed the
auction which must be held as soon as possible, and Philip sat
himself down to go through the papers of the deceased. The Rev.
William Carey had prided himself on never destroying anything, and
there were piles of correspondence dating back for fifty years and
bundles upon bundles of neatly docketed bills. He had kept not only
letters addressed to him, but letters which himself had written.
There was a yellow packet of letters which he had written to his
father in the forties, when as an Oxford undergraduate he had gone
to Germany for the long vacation. Philip read them idly. It was a
different William Carey from the William Carey he had known, and
yet there were traces in the boy which might to an acute observer
have suggested the man. The letters were formal and a little
stilted. He showed himself strenuous to see all that was
noteworthy, and he described with a fine enthusiasm the castles of
the Rhine. The falls of Schaffhausen made him `offer reverent
thanks to the all-powerful Creator of the universe, whose works
were wondrous and beautiful,' and he could not help thinking that
they who lived in sight of `this handiwork of their blessed Maker
must be moved by the contemplation to lead pure and holy lives.'
Among some bills Philip found a miniature which had been painted of
William Carey soon after he was ordained. It represented a thin
young curate, with long hair that fell over his head in natural
curls, with dark eyes, large and dreamy, and a pale ascetic face.
Philip remembered the chuckle with which his uncle used to tell of
the dozens of slippers which were worked for him by adoring
ladies.

  The rest of the afternoon and all the evening Philip
toiled through the innumerable correspondence. He glanced at the
address and at the signature, then tore the letter in two and threw
it into the washing-basket by his side. Suddenly he came upon one
signed Helen. He did not know the writing. It was thin, angular,
and old-fashioned. It began: my dear William, and ended: your
affectionate sister. Then it struck him that it was from his own
mother. He had never seen a letter of hers before, and her
handwriting was strange to him. It was about himself.

  My dear William,

  Stephen wrote to you to thank you for your
congratulations on the birth of our son and your kind wishes to
myself. Thank God we are both well and I am deeply thankful for the
great mercy which has been shown me. Now that I can hold a pen I
want to tell you and dear Louisa myself how truly grateful I am to
you both for all your kindness to me now and always since my
marriage. I am going to ask you to do me a great favour. Both
Stephen and I wish you to be the boy's godfather, and we hope that
you will consent. I know I am not asking a small thing, for I am
sure you will take the responsibilities of the position very
seriously, but I am especially anxious that you should undertake
this office because you are a clergyman as well as the boy's uncle.
I am very anxious for the boy's welfare and I pray God night and
day that he may grow into a good, honest, and Christian man. With
you to guide him I hope that he will become a soldier in Christ's
Faith and be all the days of his life God-fearing, humble, and
pious.

Your affectionate sister,

Helen.

  Philip pushed the letter away and, leaning forward,
rested his face on his hands. It deeply touched and at the same
time surprised him. He was astonished at its religious tone, which
seemed to him neither mawkish nor sentimental. He knew nothing of
his mother, dead now for nearly twenty years, but that she was
beautiful, and it was strange to learn that she was simple and
pious. He had never thought of that side of her. He read again what
she said about him, what she expected and thought about him; he had
turned out very differently; he looked at himself for a moment;
perhaps it was better that she was dead. Then a sudden impulse
caused him to tear up the letter; its tenderness and simplicity
made it seem peculiarly private; he had a queer feeling that there
was something indecent in his reading what exposed his mother's
gentle soul. He went on with the Vicar's dreary correspondence.

  A few days later he went up to London, and for the
first time for two years entered by day the hall of St. Luke's
Hospital. He went to see the secretary of the Medical School; he
was surprised to see him and asked Philip curiously what he had
been doing. Philip's experiences had given him a certain confidence
in himself and a different outlook upon many things: such a
question would have embarrassed him before; but now he answered
coolly, with a deliberate vagueness which prevented further
inquiry, that private affairs had obliged him to make a break in
the curriculum; he was now anxious to qualify as soon as possible.
The first examination he could take was in midwifery and the
diseases of women, and he put his name down to be a clerk in the
ward devoted to feminine ailments; since it was holiday time there
happened to be no difficulty in getting a post as obstetric clerk;
he arranged to undertake that duty during the last week of August
and the first two of September. After this interview Philip walked
through the Medical School, more or less deserted, for the
examinations at the end of the summer session were all over; and he
wandered along the terrace by the river-side. His heart was full.
He thought that now he could begin a new life, and he would put
behind him all the errors, follies, and miseries of the past. The
flowing river suggested that everything passed, was passing always,
and nothing mattered; the future was before him rich with
possibilities.

  He went back to Blackstable and busied himself with
the settling up of his uncle's estate. The auction was fixed for
the middle of August, when the presence of visitors for the summer
holidays would make it possible to get better prices. Catalogues
were made out and sent to the various dealers in second-hand books
at Tercanbury, Maidstone, and Ashford.

  One afternoon Philip took it into his head to go
over to Tercanbury and see his old school. He had not been there
since the day when, with relief in his heart, he had left it with
the feeling that thenceforward he was his own master. It was
strange to wander through the narrow streets of Tercanbury which he
had known so well for so many years. He looked at the old shops,
still there, still selling the same things; the booksellers with
school-books, pious works, and the latest novels in one window and
photographs of the Cathedral and of the city in the other; the
games shop, with its cricket bats, fishing tackle, tennis rackets,
and footballs; the tailor from whom he had got clothes all through
his boyhood; and the fishmonger where his uncle whenever he came to
Tercanbury bought fish. He wandered along the sordid street in
which, behind a high wall, lay the red brick house which was the
preparatory school. Further on was the gateway that led into King's
School, and he stood in the quadrangle round which were the various
buildings. It was just four and the boys were hurrying out of
school. He saw the masters in their gowns and mortar-boards, and
they were strange to him. It was more than ten years since he had
left and many changes had taken place. He saw the headmaster; he
walked slowly down from the schoolhouse to his own, talking to a
big boy who Philip supposed was in the sixth; he was little
changed, tall, cadaverous, romantic as Philip remembered him, with
the same wild eyes; but the black beard was streaked with gray now
and the dark, sallow face was more deeply lined. Philip had an
impulse to go up and speak to him, but he was afraid he would have
forgotten him, and he hated the thought of explaining who he
was.

  Boys lingered talking to one another, and presently
some who had hurried to change came out to play fives; others
straggled out in twos and threes and went out of the gateway,
Philip knew they were going up to the cricket ground; others again
went into the precincts to bat at the nets. Philip stood among them
a stranger; one or two gave him an indifferent glance; but
visitors, attracted by the Norman staircase, were not rare and
excited little attention. Philip looked at them curiously. He
thought with melancholy of the distance that separated him from
them, and he thought bitterly how much he had wanted to do and how
little done. It seemed to him that all those years, vanished beyond
recall, had been utterly wasted. The boys, fresh and buoyant, were
doing the same things that he had done, it seemed that not a day
had passed since he left the school, and yet in that place where at
least by name he had known everybody now he knew not a soul. In a
few years these too, others taking their place, would stand alien
as he stood; but the reflection brought him no solace; it merely
impressed upon him the futility of human existence. Each generation
repeated the trivial round. He wondered what had become of the boys
who were his companions: they were nearly thirty now; some would be
dead, but others were married and had children; they were soldiers
and parsons, doctors, lawyers; they were staid men who were
beginning to put youth behind them. Had any of them made such a
hash of life as he? He thought of the boy he had been devoted to;
it was funny, he could not recall his name; he remembered exactly
what he looked like, he had been his greatest friend; but his name
would not come back to him. He looked back with amusement on the
jealous emotions he had suffered on his account. It was irritating
not to recollect his name. He longed to be a boy again, like those
he saw sauntering through the quadrangle, so that, avoiding his
mistakes, he might start fresh and make something more out of life.
He felt an intolerable loneliness. He almost regretted the penury
which he had suffered during the last two years, since the
desperate struggle merely to keep body and soul together had
deadened the pain of living. In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou
earn thy daily bread: it was not a curse upon mankind, but the balm
which reconciled it to existence.