Of Human Bondage (109 page)

  Philip spent the few weeks that remained before the
beginning of the winter session in the out-patients' department,
and in October settled down to regular work. He had been away from
the hospital for so long that he found himself very largely among
new people; the men of different years had little to do with one
another, and his contemporaries were now mostly qualified: some had
left to take up assistantships or posts in country hospitals and
infirmaries, and some held appointments at St. Luke's. The two
years during which his mind had lain fallow had refreshed him, he
fancied, and he was able now to work with energy.

  The Athelnys were delighted with his change of
fortune. He had kept aside a few things from the sale of his
uncle's effects and gave them all presents. He gave Sally a gold
chain that had belonged to his aunt. She was now grown up. She was
apprenticed to a dressmaker and set out every morning at eight to
work all day in a shop in Regent Street. Sally had frank blue eyes,
a broad brow, and plentiful shining hair; she was buxom, with broad
hips and full breasts; and her father, who was fond of discussing
her appearance, warned her constantly that she must not grow fat.
She attracted because she was healthy, animal, and feminine. She
had many admirers, but they left her unmoved; she gave one the
impression that she looked upon love-making as nonsense; and it was
easy to imagine that young men found her unapproachable. Sally was
old for her years: she had been used to help her mother in the
household work and in the care of the children, so that she had
acquired a managing air, which made her mother say that Sally was a
bit too fond of having things her own way. She did not speak very
much, but as she grew older she seemed to be acquiring a quiet
sense of humour, and sometimes uttered a remark which suggested
that beneath her impassive exterior she was quietly bubbling with
amusement at her fellow-creatures. Philip found that with her he
never got on the terms of affectionate intimacy upon which he was
with the rest of Athelny's huge family. Now and then her
indifference slightly irritated him. There was something enigmatic
in her.

  When Philip gave her the necklace Athelny in his
boisterous way insisted that she must kiss him; but Sally reddened
and drew back.

  "No, I'm not going to," she said.

  "Ungrateful hussy!" cried Athelny. "Why not?"

  "I don't like being kissed by men," she said.

  Philip saw her embarrassment, and, amused, turned
Athelny's attention to something else. That was never a very
difficult thing to do. But evidently her mother spoke of the matter
later, for next time Philip came she took the opportunity when they
were alone for a couple of minutes to refer to it.

  "You didn't think it disagreeable of me last week
when I wouldn't kiss you?"

  "Not a bit," he laughed.

  "It's not because I wasn't grateful." She blushed a
little as she uttered the formal phrase which she had prepared. "I
shall always value the necklace, and it was very kind of you to
give it me."

  Philip found it always a little difficult to talk to
her. She did all that she had to do very competently, but seemed to
feel no need of conversation; yet there was nothing unsociable in
her. One Sunday afternoon when Athelny and his wife had gone out
together, and Philip, treated as one of the family, sat reading in
the parlour, Sally came in and sat by the window to sew. The girls'
clothes were made at home and Sally could not afford to spend
Sundays in idleness. Philip thought she wished to talk and put down
his book.

  "Go on reading," she said. "I only thought as you
were alone I'd come and sit with you."

  "You're the most silent person I've ever struck,"
said Philip.

  "We don't want another one who's talkative in this
house," she said.

  There was no irony in her tone: she was merely
stating a fact. But it suggested to Philip that she measured her
father, alas, no longer the hero he was to her childhood, and in
her mind joined together his entertaining conversation and the
thriftlessness which often brought difficulties into their life;
she compared his rhetoric with her mother's practical common sense;
and though the liveliness of her father amused her she was perhaps
sometimes a little impatient with it. Philip looked at her as she
bent over her work; she was healthy, strong, and normal; it must be
odd to see her among the other girls in the shop with their flat
chests and anaemic faces. Mildred suffered from anaemia.

  After a time it appeared that Sally had a suitor.
She went out occasionally with friends she had made in the
work-room, and had met a young man, an electrical engineer in a
very good way of business, who was a most eligible person. One day
she told her mother that he had asked her to marry him.

  "What did you say?" said her mother.

  "Oh, I told him I wasn't over-anxious to marry
anyone just yet awhile." She paused a little as was her habit
between observations. "He took on so that I said he might come to
tea on Sunday."

  It was an occasion that thoroughly appealed to
Athelny. He rehearsed all the afternoon how he should play the
heavy father for the young man's edification till he reduced his
children to helpless giggling. Just before he was due Athelny
routed out an Egyptian tarboosh and insisted on putting it on.

  "Go on with you, Athelny," said his wife, who was in
her best, which was of black velvet, and, since she was growing
stouter every year, very tight for her. "You'll spoil the girl's
chances."

  She tried to pull it off, but the little man skipped
nimbly out of her way.

  "Unhand me, woman. Nothing will induce me to take it
off. This young man must be shown at once that it is no ordinary
family he is preparing to enter."

  "Let him keep it on, mother," said Sally, in her
even, indifferent fashion. "If Mr. Donaldson doesn't take it the
way it's meant he can take himself off, and good riddance."

  Philip thought it was a severe ordeal that the young
man was being exposed to, since Athelny, in his brown velvet
jacket, flowing black tie, and red tarboosh, was a startling
spectacle for an innocent electrical engineer. When he came he was
greeted by his host with the proud courtesy of a Spanish grandee
and by Mrs. Athelny in an altogether homely and natural fashion.
They sat down at the old ironing-table in the high-backed monkish
chairs, and Mrs. Athelny poured tea out of a lustre teapot which
gave a note of England and the country-side to the festivity. She
had made little cakes with her own hand, and on the table was
home-made jam. It was a farm-house tea, and to Philip very quaint
and charming in that Jacobean house. Athelny for some fantastic
reason took it into his head to discourse upon Byzantine history;
he had been reading the later volumes of the Decline and Fall; and,
his forefinger dramatically extended, he poured into the astonished
ears of the suitor scandalous stories about Theodora and Irene. He
addressed himself directly to his guest with a torrent of
rhodomontade; and the young man, reduced to helpless silence and
shy, nodded his head at intervals to show that he took an
intelligent interest. Mrs. Athelny paid no attention to Thorpe's
conversation, but interrupted now and then to offer the young man
more tea or to press upon him cake and jam. Philip watched Sally;
she sat with downcast eyes, calm, silent, and observant; and her
long eye-lashes cast a pretty shadow on her cheek. You could not
tell whether she was amused at the scene or if she cared for the
young man. She was inscrutable. But one thing was certain: the
electrical engineer was good-looking, fair and clean-shaven, with
pleasant, regular features, and an honest face; he was tall and
well-made. Philip could not help thinking he would make an
excellent mate for her, and he felt a pang of envy for the
happiness which he fancied was in store for them.

  Presently the suitor said he thought it was about
time he was getting along. Sally rose to her feet without a word
and accompanied him to the door. When she came back her father
burst out:

  "Well, Sally, we think your young man very nice. We
are prepared to welcome him into our family. Let the banns be
called and I will compose a nuptial song."

  Sally set about clearing away the tea-things. She
did not answer. Suddenly she shot a swift glance at Philip.

  "What did you think of him, Mr. Philip?"

  She had always refused to call him Uncle Phil as the
other children did, and would not call him Philip.

  "I think you'd make an awfully handsome pair."

  She looked at him quickly once more, and then with a
slight blush went on with her business.

  "I thought him a very nice civil-spoken young
fellow," said Mrs. Athelny, "and I think he's just the sort to make
any girl happy."

  Sally did not reply for a minute or two, and Philip
looked at her curiously: it might be thought that she was
meditating upon what her mother had said, and on the other hand she
might be thinking of the man in the moon.

  "Why don't you answer when you're spoken to, Sally?"
remarked her mother, a little irritably.

  "I thought he was a silly."

  "Aren't you going to have him then?"

  "No, I'm not."

  "I don't know how much more you want," said Mrs.
Athelny, and it was quite clear now that she was put out. "He's a
very decent young fellow and he can afford to give you a thorough
good home. We've got quite enough to feed here without you. If you
get a chance like that it's wicked not to take it. And I daresay
you'd be able to have a girl to do the rough work."

  Philip had never before heard Mrs. Athelny refer so
directly to the difficulties of her life. He saw how important it
was that each child should be provided for.

  "It's no good your carrying on, mother," said Sally
in her quiet way. "I'm not going to marry him."

  "I think you're a very hard-hearted, cruel, selfish
girl."

  "If you want me to earn my own living, mother, I can
always go into service."

  "Don't be so silly, you know your father would never
let you do that."

  Philip caught Sally's eye, and he thought there was
in it a glimmer of amusement. He wondered what there had been in
the conversation to touch her sense of humour. She was an odd
girl.