Of Human Bondage (5 page)

  Sunday was a day crowded with incident. Mr. Carey
was accustomed to say that he was the only man in his parish who
worked seven days a week.

  The household got up half an hour earlier than
usual. No lying abed for a poor parson on the day of rest, Mr.
Carey remarked as Mary Ann knocked at the door punctually at eight.
It took Mrs. Carey longer to dress, and she got down to breakfast
at nine, a little breathless, only just before her husband. Mr.
Carey's boots stood in front of the fire to warm. Prayers were
longer than usual, and the breakfast more substantial. After
breakfast the Vicar cut thin slices of bread for the communion, and
Philip was privileged to cut off the crust. He was sent to the
study to fetch a marble paperweight, with which Mr. Carey pressed
the bread till it was thin and pulpy, and then it was cut into
small squares. The amount was regulated by the weather. On a very
bad day few people came to church, and on a very fine one, though
many came, few stayed for communion. There were most when it was
dry enough to make the walk to church pleasant, but not so fine
that people wanted to hurry away.

  Then Mrs. Carey brought the communion plate out of
the safe, which stood in the pantry, and the Vicar polished it with
a chamois leather. At ten the fly drove up, and Mr. Carey got into
his boots. Mrs. Carey took several minutes to put on her bonnet,
during which the Vicar, in a voluminous cloak, stood in the hall
with just such an expression on his face as would have become an
early Christian about to be led into the arena. It was
extraordinary that after thirty years of marriage his wife could
not be ready in time on Sunday morning. At last she came, in black
satin; the Vicar did not like colours in a clergyman's wife at any
time, but on Sundays he was determined that she should wear black;
now and then, in conspiracy with Miss Graves, she ventured a white
feather or a pink rose in her bonnet, but the Vicar insisted that
it should disappear; he said he would not go to church with the
scarlet woman: Mrs. Carey sighed as a woman but obeyed as a wife.
They were about to step into the carriage when the Vicar remembered
that no one had given him his egg. They knew that he must have an
egg for his voice, there were two women in the house, and no one
had the least regard for his comfort. Mrs. Carey scolded Mary Ann,
and Mary Ann answered that she could not think of everything. She
hurried away to fetch an egg, and Mrs. Carey beat it up in a glass
of sherry. The Vicar swallowed it at a gulp. The communion plate
was stowed in the carriage, and they set off.

  The fly came from The Red Lion and had a peculiar
smell of stale straw. They drove with both windows closed so that
the Vicar should not catch cold. The sexton was waiting at the
porch to take the communion plate, and while the Vicar went to the
vestry Mrs. Carey and Philip settled themselves in the vicarage
pew. Mrs. Carey placed in front of her the sixpenny bit she was
accustomed to put in the plate, and gave Philip threepence for the
same purpose. The church filled up gradually and the service
began.

  Philip grew bored during the sermon, but if he
fidgetted Mrs. Carey put a gentle hand on his arm and looked at him
reproachfully. He regained interest when the final hymn was sung
and Mr.Graves passed round with the plate.

  When everyone had gone Mrs. Carey went into Miss
Graves' pew to have a few words with her while they were waiting
for the gentlemen, and Philip went to the vestry. His uncle, the
curate, and Mr. Graves were still in their surplices. Mr. Carey
gave him the remains of the consecrated bread and told him he might
eat it. He had been accustomed to eat it himself, as it seemed
blasphemous to throw it away, but Philip's keen appetite relieved
him from the duty. Then they counted the money. It consisted of
pennies, sixpences and threepenny bits. There were always two
single shillings, one put in the plate by the Vicar and the other
by Mr. Graves; and sometimes there was a florin. Mr. Graves told
the Vicar who had given this. It was always a stranger to
Blackstable, and Mr. Carey wondered who he was. But Miss Graves had
observed the rash act and was able to tell Mrs. Carey that the
stranger came from London, was married and had children. During the
drive home Mrs. Carey passed the information on, and the Vicar made
up his mind to call on him and ask for a subscription to the
Additional Curates Society. Mr. Carey asked if Philip had behaved
properly; and Mrs. Carey remarked that Mrs. Wigram had a new
mantle, Mr. Cox was not in church, and somebody thought that Miss
Phillips was engaged. When they reached the vicarage they all felt
that they deserved a substantial dinner.

  When this was over Mrs. Carey went to her room to
rest, and Mr. Carey lay down on the sofa in the drawing-room for
forty winks.

  They had tea at five, and the Vicar ate an egg to
support himself for evensong. Mrs. Carey did not go to this so that
Mary Ann might, but she read the service through and the hymns. Mr.
Carey walked to church in the evening, and Philip limped along by
his side. The walk through the darkness along the country road
strangely impressed him, and the church with all its lights in the
distance, coming gradually nearer, seemed very friendly. At first
he was shy with his uncle, but little by little grew used to him,
and he would slip his hand in his uncle's and walk more easily for
the feeling of protection.

  They had supper when they got home. Mr. Carey's
slippers were waiting for him on a footstool in front of the fire
and by their side Philip's, one the shoe of a small boy, the other
misshapen and odd. He was dreadfully tired when he went up to bed,
and he did not resist when Mary Ann undressed him. She kissed him
after she tucked him up, and he began to love her.

  Philip had led always the solitary life of an only
child, and his loneliness at the vicarage was no greater than it
had been when his mother lived. He made friends with Mary Ann. She
was a chubby little person of thirty-five, the daughter of a
fisherman, and had come to the vicarage at eighteen; it was her
first place and she had no intention of leaving it; but she held a
possible marriage as a rod over the timid heads of her master and
mistress. Her father and mother lived in a little house off Harbour
Street, and she went to see them on her evenings out. Her stories
of the sea touched Philip's imagination, and the narrow alleys
round the harbour grew rich with the romance which his young fancy
lent them. One evening he asked whether he might go home with her;
but his aunt was afraid that he might catch something, and his
uncle said that evil communications corrupted good manners. He
disliked the fisher folk, who were rough, uncouth, and went to
chapel. But Philip was more comfortable in the kitchen than in the
dining-room, and, whenever he could, he took his toys and played
there. His aunt was not sorry. She did not like disorder, and
though she recognised that boys must be expected to be untidy she
preferred that he should make a mess in the kitchen. If he fidgeted
his uncle was apt to grow restless and say it was high time he went
to school. Mrs. Carey thought Philip very young for this, and her
heart went out to the motherless child; but her attempts to gain
his affection were awkward, and the boy, feeling shy, received her
demonstrations with so much sullenness that she was mortified.
Sometimes she heard his shrill voice raised in laughter in the
kitchen, but when she went in, he grew suddenly silent, and he
flushed darkly when Mary Ann explained the joke. Mrs. Carey could
not see anything amusing in what she heard, and she smiled with
constraint.

  "He seems happier with Mary Ann than with us,
William," she said, when she returned to her sewing.

  "One can see he's been very badly brought up. He
wants licking into shape."

  On the second Sunday after Philip arrived an unlucky
incident occurred. Mr. Carey had retired as usual after dinner for
a little snooze in the drawing-room, but he was in an irritable
mood and could not sleep. Josiah Graves that morning had objected
strongly to some candlesticks with which the Vicar had adorned the
altar. He had bought them second-hand in Tercanbury, and he thought
they looked very well. But Josiah Graves said they were popish.
This was a taunt that always aroused the Vicar. He had been at
Oxford during the movement which ended in the secession from the
Established Church of Edward Manning, and he felt a certain
sympathy for the Church of Rome. He would willingly have made the
service more ornate than had been usual in the low-church parish of
Blackstable, and in his secret soul he yearned for processions and
lighted candles. He drew the line at incense. He hated the word
protestant. He called himself a Catholic. He was accustomed to say
that Papists required an epithet, they were Roman Catholic; but the
Church of England was Catholic in the best, the fullest, and the
noblest sense of the term. He was pleased to think that his shaven
face gave him the look of a priest, and in his youth he had
possessed an ascetic air which added to the impression. He often
related that on one of his holidays in Boulogne, one of those
holidays upon which his wife for economy's sake did not accompany
him, when he was sitting in a church, the cure had come up to him
and invited him to preach a sermon. He dismissed his curates when
they married, having decided views on the celibacy of the
unbeneficed clergy. But when at an election the Liberals had
written on his garden fence in large blue letters: This way to
Rome, he had been very angry, and threatened to prosecute the
leaders of the Liberal party in Blackstable. He made up his mind
now that nothing Josiah Graves said would induce him to remove the
candlesticks from the altar, and he muttered Bismarck to himself
once or twice irritably.

  Suddenly he heard an unexpected noise. He pulled the
handkerchief off his face, got up from the sofa on which he was
lying, and went into the dining-room. Philip was seated on the
table with all his bricks around him. He had built a monstrous
castle, and some defect in the foundation had just brought the
structure down in noisy ruin.

  "What are you doing with those bricks, Philip? You
know you're not allowed to play games on Sunday."

  Philip stared at him for a moment with frightened
eyes, and, as his habit was, flushed deeply.

  "I always used to play at home," he answered.

  "I'm sure your dear mamma never allowed you to do
such a wicked thing as that."

  Philip did not know it was wicked; but if it was, he
did not wish it to be supposed that his mother had consented to it.
He hung his head and did not answer.

  "Don't you know it's very, very wicked to play on
Sunday? What d'you suppose it's called the day of rest for? You're
going to church tonight, and how can you face your Maker when
you've been breaking one of His laws in the afternoon?"

  Mr. Carey told him to put the bricks away at once,
and stood over him while Philip did so.

  "You're a very naughty boy," he repeated. "Think of
the grief you're causing your poor mother in heaven."

  Philip felt inclined to cry, but he had an
instinctive disinclination to letting other people see his tears,
and he clenched his teeth to prevent the sobs from escaping. Mr.
Carey sat down in his arm-chair and began to turn over the pages of
a book. Philip stood at the window. The vicarage was set back from
the highroad to Tercanbury, and from the dining-room one saw a
semicircular strip of lawn and then as far as the horizon green
fields. Sheep were grazing in them. The sky was forlorn and gray.
Philip felt infinitely unhappy.

  Presently Mary Ann came in to lay the tea, and Aunt
Louisa descended the stairs.

  "Have you had a nice little nap, William?" she
asked.

  "No," he answered. "Philip made so much noise that I
couldn't sleep a wink."