Of Human Bondage (101 page)

  "Well, it comes round to my own idea in the
end."

  One day, when Philip had been at the shop for five
months, Miss Alice Antonia, the well-known serio-comic, came in and
asked to see Mr. Sampson. She was a large woman, with flaxen hair,
and a boldly painted face, a metallic voice, and the breezy manner
of a comedienne accustomed to be on friendly terms with the gallery
boys of provincial music-halls. She had a new song and wished Mr.
Sampson to design a costume for her.

  "I want something striking," she said. "I don't want
any old thing you know. I want something different from what
anybody else has."

  Mr. Sampson, bland and familiar, said he was quite
certain they could get her the very thing she required. He showed
her sketches.

  "I know there's nothing here that would do, but I
just want to show you the kind of thing I would suggest."

  "Oh no, that's not the sort of thing at all," she
said, as she glanced at them impatiently. "What I want is something
that'll just hit 'em in the jaw and make their front teeth
rattle."

  "Yes, I quite understand, Miss Antonia," said the
buyer, with a bland smile, but his eyes grew blank and stupid.

  "I expect I shall 'ave to pop over to Paris for it
in the end."

  "Oh, I think we can give you satisfaction, Miss
Antonia. What you can get in Paris you can get here."

  When she had swept out of the department Mr.
Sampson, a little worried, discussed the matter with Mrs.
Hodges.

  "She's a caution and no mistake," said Mrs.
Hodges.

  "Alice, where art thou?" remarked the buyer,
irritably, and thought he had scored a point against her.

  His ideas of music-hall costumes had never gone
beyond short skirts, a swirl of lace, and glittering sequins; but
Miss Antonia had expressed herself on that subject in no uncertain
terms.

  "Oh, my aunt!" she said.

  And the invocation was uttered in such a tone as to
indicate a rooted antipathy to anything so commonplace, even if she
had not added that sequins gave her the sick. Mr. Sampson `got out'
one or two ideas, but Mrs. Hodges told him frankly she did not
think they would do. It was she who gave Philip the suggestion:

  "Can you draw, Phil? Why don't you try your 'and and
see what you can do?"

  Philip bought a cheap box of water colours, and in
the evening while Bell, the noisy lad of sixteen, whistling three
notes, busied himself with his stamps, he made one or two sketches.
He remembered some of the costumes he had seen in Paris, and he
adapted one of them, getting his effect from a combination of
violent, unusual colours. The result amused him and next morning he
showed it to Mrs. Hodges. She was somewhat astonished, but took it
at once to the buyer.

  "It's unusual," he said, "there's no denying
that."

  It puzzled him, and at the same time his trained eye
saw that it would make up admirably. To save his face he began
making suggestions for altering it, but Mrs. Hodges, with more
sense, advised him to show it to Miss Antonia as it was.

  "It's neck or nothing with her, and she may take a
fancy to it."

  "It's a good deal more nothing than neck," said Mr.
Sampson, looking at the decolletage. "He can draw, can't he? Fancy
'im keeping it dark all this time."

  When Miss Antonia was announced, the buyer placed
the design on the table in such a position that it must catch her
eye the moment she was shown into his office. She pounced on it at
once.

  "What's that?" she said. "Why can't I 'ave
that?"

  "That's just an idea we got out for you," said Mr.
Sampson casually. "D'you like it?"

  "Do I like it!" she said. "Give me 'alf a pint with
a little drop of gin in it."

  "Ah, you see, you don't have to go to Paris. You've
only got to say what you want and there you are."

  The work was put in hand at once, and Philip felt
quite a thrill of satisfaction when he saw the costume completed.
The buyer and Mrs. Hodges took all the credit of it; but he did not
care, and when he went with them to the Tivoli to see Miss Antonia
wear it for the first time he was filled with elation. In answer to
her questions he at last told Mrs. Hodges how he had learnt to draw
– fearing that the people he lived with would think he wanted to
put on airs, he had always taken the greatest care to say nothing
about his past occupations – and she repeated the information to
Mr. Sampson. The buyer said nothing to him on the subject, but
began to treat him a little more deferentially and presently gave
him designs to do for two of the country customers. They met with
satisfaction. Then he began to speak to his clients of a "clever
young feller, Paris art-student, you know," who worked for him; and
soon Philip, ensconced behind a screen, in his shirt sleeves, was
drawing from morning till night. Sometimes he was so busy that he
had to dine at three with the `stragglers.' He liked it, because
there were few of them and they were all too tired to talk; the
food also was better, for it consisted of what was left over from
the buyers' table. Philip's rise from shop-walker to designer of
costumes had a great effect on the department. He realised that he
was an object of envy. Harris, the assistant with the queer-shaped
head, who was the first person he had known at the shop and had
attached himself to Philip, could not conceal his bitterness.

  "Some people 'ave all the luck," he said. "You'll be
a buyer yourself one of these days, and we shall all be calling you
sir."

  He told Philip that he should demand higher wages,
for notwithstanding the difficult work he was now engaged in, he
received no more than the six shillings a week with which he
started. But it was a ticklish matter to ask for a rise. The
manager had a sardonic way of dealing with such applicants.

  "Think you're worth more, do you? How much d'you
think you're worth, eh?"

  The assistant, with his heart in his mouth, would
suggest that he thought he ought to have another two shillings a
week.

  "Oh, very well, if you think you're worth it. You
can 'ave it." Then he paused and sometimes, with a steely eye,
added: "And you can 'ave your notice too."

  It was no use then to withdraw your request, you had
to go. The manager's idea was that assistants who were dissatisfied
did not work properly, and if they were not worth a rise it was
better to sack them at once. The result was that they never asked
for one unless they were prepared to leave. Philip hesitated. He
was a little suspicious of the men in his room who told him that
the buyer could not do without him. They were decent fellows, but
their sense of humour was primitive, and it would have seemed funny
to them if they had persuaded Philip to ask for more wages and he
were sacked. He could not forget the mortification he had suffered
in looking for work, he did not wish to expose himself to that
again, and he knew there was small chance of his getting elsewhere
a post as designer: there were hundreds of people about who could
draw as well as he. But he wanted money very badly; his clothes
were worn out, and the heavy carpets rotted his socks and boots; he
had almost persuaded himself to take the venturesome step when one
morning, passing up from breakfast in the basement through the
passage that led to the manager's office, he saw a queue of men
waiting in answer to an advertisement. There were about a hundred
of them, and whichever was engaged would be offered his keep and
the same six shillings a week that Philip had. He saw some of them
cast envious glances at him because he had employment. It made him
shudder. He dared not risk it.

  The winter passed. Now and then Philip went to the
hospital, slinking in when it was late and there was little chance
of meeting anyone he knew, to see whether there were letters for
him. At Easter he received one from his uncle. He was surprised to
hear from him, for the Vicar of Blackstable had never written him
more than half a dozen letters in his whole life, and they were on
business matters.

  Dear Philip,

  If you are thinking of taking a holiday soon and
care to come down here I shall be pleased to see you. I was very
ill with my bronchitis in the winter and Doctor Wigram never
expected me to pull through. I have a wonderful constitution and I
made, thank God, a marvellous recovery. Yours affectionately,

William Carey.

  The letter made Philip angry. How did his uncle
think he was living? He did not even trouble to inquire. He might
have starved for all the old man cared. But as he walked home
something struck him; he stopped under a lamp-post and read the
letter again; the handwriting had no longer the business-like
firmness which had characterised it; it was larger and wavering:
perhaps the illness had shaken him more than he was willing to
confess, and he sought in that formal note to express a yearning to
see the only relation he had in the world. Philip wrote back that
he could come down to Blackstable for a fortnight in July. The
invitation was convenient, for he had not known what to do, with
his brief holiday. The Athelnys went hopping in September, but he
could not then be spared, since during that month the autumn models
were prepared. The rule of Lynn's was that everyone must take a
fortnight whether he wanted it or not; and during that time, if he
had nowhere to go, the assistant might sleep in his room, but he
was not allowed food. A number had no friends within reasonable
distance of London, and to these the holiday was an awkward
interval when they had to provide food out of their small wages
and, with the whole day on their hands, had nothing to spend.
Philip had not been out of London since his visit to Brighton with
Mildred, now two years before, and he longed for fresh air and the
silence of the sea. He thought of it with such a passionate desire,
all through May and June, that, when at length the time came for
him to go, he was listless.

  On his last evening, when he talked with the buyer
of one or two jobs he had to leave over, Mr. Sampson suddenly said
to him:

  "What wages have you been getting?"

  "Six shillings."

  "I don't think it's enough. I'll see that you're put
up to twelve when you come back."

  "Thank you very much," smiled Philip. "I'm beginning
to want some new clothes badly."

  "If you stick to your work and don't go larking
about with the girls like what some of them do, I'll look after
you, Carey. Mind you, you've got a lot to learn, but you're
promising, I'll say that for you, you're promising, and I'll see
that you get a pound a week as soon as you deserve it."

  Philip wondered how long he would have to wait for
that. Two years?

  He was startled at the change in his uncle. When
last he had seen him he was a stout man, who held himself upright,
clean-shaven, with a round, sensual face; but he had fallen in
strangely, his skin was yellow; there were great bags under the
eyes, and he was bent and old. He had grown a beard during his last
illness, and he walked very slowly.

  "I 'm not at my best today," he said when Philip,
having just arrived, was sitting with him in the dining-room. "The
heat upsets me."

  Philip, asking after the affairs of the parish,
looked at him and wondered how much longer he could last. A hot
summer would finish him; Philip noticed how thin his hands were;
they trembled. It meant so much to Philip. If he died that summer
he could go back to the hospital at the beginning of the winter
session; his heart leaped at the thought of returning no more to
Lynn's. At dinner the Vicar sat humped up on his chair, and the
housekeeper who had been with him since his wife's death said:

  "Shall Mr. Philip carve, sir?"

  The old man, who had been about to do so from
disinclination to confess his weakness, seemed glad at the first
suggestion to relinquish the attempt.