Of Human Bondage (91 page)

  When she first came to live in the little rooms in
Kennington she was tired out and ashamed. She was glad to be left
alone. It was a comfort to think that there was no rent to pay; she
need not go out in all weathers, and she could lie quietly in bed
if she did not feel well. She had hated the life she led. It was
horrible to have to be affable and subservient; and even now when
it crossed her mind she cried with pity for herself as she thought
of the roughness of men and their brutal language. But it crossed
her mind very seldom. She was grateful to Philip for coming to her
rescue, and when she remembered how honestly he had loved her and
how badly she had treated him, she felt a pang of remorse. It was
easy to make it up to him. It meant very little to her. She was
surprised when he refused her suggestion, but she shrugged her
shoulders: let him put on airs if he liked, she did not care, he
would be anxious enough in a little while, and then it would be her
turn to refuse; if he thought it was any deprivation to her he was
very much mistaken. She had no doubt of her power over him. He was
peculiar, but she knew him through and through. He had so often
quarrelled with her and sworn he would never see her again, and
then in a little while he had come on his knees begging to be
forgiven. It gave her a thrill to think how he had cringed before
her. He would have been glad to lie down on the ground for her to
walk on him. She had seen him cry. She knew exactly how to treat
him, pay no attention to him, just pretend you didn't notice his
tempers, leave him severely alone, and in a little while he was
sure to grovel. She laughed a little to herself, good-humouredly,
when she thought how he had come and eaten dirt before her. She had
had her fling now. She knew what men were and did not want to have
anything more to do with them. She was quite ready to settle down
with Philip. When all was said, he was a gentleman in every sense
of the word, and that was something not to be sneezed at, wasn't
it? Anyhow she was in no hurry, and she was not going to take the
first step. She was glad to see how fond he was growing of the
baby, though it tickled her a good deal; it was comic that he
should set so much store on another man's child. He was peculiar
and no mistake.

  But one or two things surprised her. She had been
used to his subservience: he was only too glad to do anything for
her in the old days, she was accustomed to see him cast down by a
cross word and in ecstasy at a kind one; he was different now, and
she said to herself that he had not improved in the last year. It
never struck her for a moment that there could be any change in his
feelings, and she thought it was only acting when he paid no heed
to her bad temper. He wanted to read sometimes and told her to stop
talking: she did not know whether to flare up or to sulk, and was
so puzzled that she did neither. Then came the conversation in
which he told her that he intended their relations to be platonic,
and, remembering an incident of their common past, it occurred to
her that he dreaded the possibility of her being pregnant. She took
pains to reassure him. It made no difference. She was the sort of
woman who was unable to realise that a man might not have her own
obsession with sex; her relations with men had been purely on those
lines; and she could not understand that they ever had other
interests. The thought struck her that Philip was in love with
somebody else, and she watched him, suspecting nurses at the
hospital or people he met out; but artful questions led her to the
conclusion that there was no one dangerous in the Athelny
household; and it forced itself upon her also that Philip, like
most medical students, was unconscious of the sex of the nurses
with whom his work threw him in contact. They were associated in
his mind with a faint odour of iodoform. Philip received no
letters, and there was no girl's photograph among his belongings.
If he was in love with someone, he was very clever at hiding it;
and he answered all Mildred's questions with frankness and
apparently without suspicion that there was any motive in them.

  "I don't believe he's in love with anybody else,"
she said to herself at last.

  It was a relief, for in that case he was certainly
still in love with her; but it made his behaviour very puzzling. If
he was going to treat her like that why did he ask her to come and
live at the flat? It was unnatural. Mildred was not a woman who
conceived the possibility of compassion, generosity, or kindness.
Her only conclusion was that Philip was queer. She took it into her
head that the reasons for his conduct were chivalrous; and, her
imagination filled with the extravagances of cheap fiction, she
pictured to herself all sorts of romantic explanations for his
delicacy. Her fancy ran riot with bitter misunderstandings,
purifications by fire, snow-white souls, and death in the cruel
cold of a Christmas night. She made up her mind that when they went
to Brighton she would put an end to all his nonsense; they would be
alone there, everyone would think them husband and wife, and there
would be the pier and the band. When she found that nothing would
induce Philip to share the same room with her, when he spoke to her
about it with a tone in his voice she had never heard before, she
suddenly realised that he did not want her. She was astounded. She
remembered all he had said in the past and how desperately he had
loved her. She felt humiliated and angry, but she had a sort of
native insolence which carried her through. He needn't think she
was in love with him, because she wasn't. She hated him sometimes,
and she longed to humble him; but she found herself singularly
powerless; she did not know which way to handle him. She began to
be a little nervous with him. Once or twice she cried. Once or
twice she set herself to be particularly nice to him; but when she
took his arm while they walked along the front at night he made
some excuse in a while to release himself, as though it were
unpleasant for him to be touched by her. She could not make it out.
The only hold she had over him was through the baby, of whom he
seemed to grow fonder and fonder: she could make him white with
anger by giving the child a slap or a push; and the only time the
old, tender smile came back into his eyes was when she stood with
the baby in her arms. She noticed it when she was being
photographed like that by a man on the beach, and afterwards she
often stood in the same way for Philip to look at her.

  When they got back to London Mildred began looking
for the work she had asserted was so easy to find; she wanted now
to be independent of Philip; and she thought of the satisfaction
with which she would announce to him that she was going into rooms
and would take the child with her. But her heart failed her when
she came into closer contact with the possibility. She had grown
unused to the long hours, she did not want to be at the beck and
call of a manageress, and her dignity revolted at the thought of
wearing once more a uniform. She had made out to such of the
neighbours as she knew that they were comfortably off: it would be
a come-down if they heard that she had to go out and work. Her
natural indolence asserted itself. She did not want to leave
Philip, and so long as he was willing to provide for her, she did
not see why she should. There was no money to throw away, but she
got her board and lodging, and he might get better off. His uncle
was an old man and might die any day, he would come into a little
then, and even as things were, it was better than slaving from
morning till night for a few shillings a week. Her efforts relaxed;
she kept on reading the advertisement columns of the daily paper
merely to show that she wanted to do something if anything that was
worth her while presented itself. But panic seized her, and she was
afraid that Philip would grow tired of supporting her. She had no
hold over him at all now, and she fancied that he only allowed her
to stay there because he was fond of the baby. She brooded over it
all, and she thought to herself angrily that she would make him pay
for all this some day. She could not reconcile herself to the fact
that he no longer cared for her. She would make him. She suffered
from pique, and sometimes in a curious fashion she desired Philip.
He was so cold now that it exasperated her. She thought of him in
that way incessantly. She thought that he was treating her very
badly, and she did not know what she had done to deserve it. She
kept on saying to herself that it was unnatural they should live
like that. Then she thought that if things were different and she
were going to have a baby, he would be sure to marry her. He was
funny, but he was a gentleman in every sense of the word, no one
could deny that. At last it became an obsession with her, and she
made up her mind to force a change in their relations. He never
even kissed her now, and she wanted him to: she remembered how
ardently he had been used to press her lips. It gave her a curious
feeling to think of it. She often looked at his mouth.

  One evening, at the beginning of February, Philip
told her that he was dining with Lawson, who was giving a party in
his studio to celebrate his birthday; and he would not be in till
late; Lawson had bought a couple of bottles of the punch they
favoured from the tavern in Beak Street, and they proposed to have
a merry evening. Mildred asked if there were going to be women
there, but Philip told her there were not; only men had been
invited; and they were just going to sit and talk and smoke:
Mildred did not think it sounded very amusing; if she were a
painter she would have half a dozen models about. She went to bed,
but could not sleep, and presently an idea struck her; she got up
and fixed the catch on the wicket at the landing, so that Philip
could not get in. He came back about one, and she heard him curse
when he found that the wicket was closed. She got out of bed and
opened.

  "Why on earth did you shut yourself in? I'm sorry
I've dragged you out of bed."

  "I left it open on purpose, I can't think how it
came to be shut."

  "Hurry up and get back to bed, or you'll catch
cold."

  He walked into the sitting-room and turned up the
gas. She followed him in. She went up to the fire.

  "I want to warm my feet a bit. They're like
ice."

  He sat down and began to take off his boots. His
eyes were shining and his cheeks were flushed. She thought he had
been drinking.

  "Have you been enjoying yourself?" she asked, with a
smile.

  "Yes, I've had a ripping time."

  Philip was quite sober, but he had been talking and
laughing, and he was excited still. An evening of that sort
reminded him of the old days in Paris. He was in high spirits. He
took his pipe out of his pocket and filled it.

  "Aren't you going to bed?" she asked.

  "Not yet, I'm not a bit sleepy. Lawson was in great
form. He talked sixteen to the dozen from the moment I got there
till the moment I left."

  "What did you talk about?"

  "Heaven knows! Of every subject under the sun. You
should have seen us all shouting at the tops of our voices and
nobody listening."

  Philip laughed with pleasure at the recollection,
and Mildred laughed too. She was pretty sure he had drunk more than
was good for him. That was exactly what she had expected. She knew
men.

  "Can I sit down?" she said.

  Before he could answer she settled herself on his
knees.

  "If you're not going to bed you'd better go and put
on a dressing-gown."

  "Oh, I'm all right as I am." Then putting her arms
round his neck, she placed her face against his and said: "Why are
you so horrid to me, Phil?"

  He tried to get up, but she would not let him.

  "I do love you, Philip," she said.

  "Don't talk damned rot."

  "It isn't, it's true. I can't live without you. I
want you."

  He released himself from her arms.

  "Please get up. You're making a fool of yourself and
you're making me feel a perfect idiot."

  "I love you, Philip. I want to make up for all the
harm I did you. I can't go on like this, it's not in human
nature."

  He slipped out of the chair and left her in it.

  "I'm very sorry, but it's too late."

  She gave a heart-rending sob.

  "But why? How can you be so cruel?"

  "I suppose it's because I loved you too much. I wore
the passion out. The thought of anything of that sort horrifies me.
I can't look at you now without thinking of Emil and Griffiths. One
can't help those things, I suppose it's just nerves."

  She seized his hand and covered it with kisses.

  "Don't," he cried.

  She sank back into the chair.

  "I can't go on like this. If you won't love me, I'd
rather go away."

  "Don't be foolish, you haven't anywhere to go. You
can stay here as long as you like, but it must be on the definite
understanding that we're friends and nothing more."

  Then she dropped suddenly the vehemence of passion
and gave a soft, insinuating laugh. She sidled up to Philip and put
her arms round him. She made her voice low and wheedling.

  "Don't be such an old silly. I believe you're
nervous. You don't know how nice I can be."

  She put her face against his and rubbed his cheek
with hers. To Philip her smile was an abominable leer, and the
suggestive glitter of her eyes filled him with horror. He drew back
instinctively.

  "I won't," he said.

  But she would not let him go. She sought his mouth
with her lips. He took her hands and tore them roughly apart and
pushed her away.

  "You disgust me," he said.

  "Me?"

  She steadied herself with one hand on the
chimney-piece. She looked at him for an instant, and two red spots
suddenly appeared on her cheeks. She gave a shrill, angry
laugh.