Of Human Bondage (2 page)

  When they reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in –
it was in a dreary, respectable street between Notting Hill Gate
and High Street, Kensington – Emma led Philip into the
drawing-room. His uncle was writing letters of thanks for the
wreaths which had been sent. One of them, which had arrived too
late for the funeral, lay in its cardboard box on the
hall-table.

  "Here's Master Philip," said Emma.

  Mr. Carey stood up slowly and shook hands with the
little boy. Then on second thoughts he bent down and kissed his
forehead. He was a man of somewhat less than average height,
inclined to corpulence, with his hair, worn long, arranged over the
scalp so as to conceal his baldness. He was clean-shaven. His
features were regular, and it was possible to imagine that in his
youth he had been good-looking. On his watch-chain he wore a gold
cross.

  "You're going to live with me now, Philip," said Mr.
Carey. "Shall you like that?"

  Two years before Philip had been sent down to stay
at the vicarage after an attack of chicken-pox; but there remained
with him a recollection of an attic and a large garden rather than
of his uncle and aunt.

  "Yes."

  "You must look upon me and your Aunt Louisa as your
father and mother."

  The child's mouth trembled a little, he reddened,
but did not answer.

  "Your dear mother left you in my charge."

  Mr. Carey had no great ease in expressing himself.
When the news came that his sister-in-law was dying, he set off at
once for London, but on the way thought of nothing but the
disturbance in his life that would be caused if her death forced
him to undertake the care of her son. He was well over fifty, and
his wife, to whom he had been married for thirty years, was
childless; he did not look forward with any pleasure to the
presence of a small boy who might be noisy and rough. He had never
much liked his sister-in-law.

  "I'm going to take you down to Blackstable
tomorrow," he said.

  "With Emma?"

  The child put his hand in hers, and she pressed
it.

  "I'm afraid Emma must go away," said Mr. Carey.

  "But I want Emma to come with me."

  Philip began to cry, and the nurse could not help
crying too. Mr. Carey looked at them helplessly.

  "I think you'd better leave me alone with Master
Philip for a moment."

  "Very good, sir."

  Though Philip clung to her, she released herself
gently. Mr. Carey took the boy on his knee and put his arm round
him.

  "You mustn't cry," he said. "You're too old to have
a nurse now. We must see about sending you to school."

  "I want Emma to come with me," the child
repeated.

  "It costs too much money, Philip. Your father didn't
leave very much, and I don't know what's become of it. You must
look at every penny you spend."

  Mr. Carey had called the day before on the family
solicitor. Philip's father was a surgeon in good practice, and his
hospital appointments suggested an established position; so that it
was a surprise on his sudden death from blood-poisoning to find
that he had left his widow little more than his life insurance and
what could be got for the lease of their house in Bruton Street.
This was six months ago; and Mrs. Carey, already in delicate
health, finding herself with child, had lost her head and accepted
for the lease the first offer that was made. She stored her
furniture, and, at a rent which the parson thought outrageous, took
a furnished house for a year, so that she might suffer from no
inconvenience till her child was born. But she had never been used
to the management of money, and was unable to adapt her expenditure
to her altered circumstances. The little she had slipped through
her fingers in one way and another, so that now, when all expenses
were paid, not much more than two thousand pounds remained to
support the boy till he was able to earn his own living. It was
impossible to explain all this to Philip and he was sobbing
still.

  "You'd better go to Emma," Mr. Carey said, feeling
that she could console the child better than anyone.

  Without a word Philip slipped off his uncle's knee,
but Mr. Carey stopped him.

  "We must go tomorrow, because on Saturday I've got
to prepare my sermon, and you must tell Emma to get your things
ready today. You can bring all your toys. And if you want anything
to remember your father and mother by you can take one thing for
each of them. Everything else is going to be sold."

  The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was
unused to work, and he turned to his correspondence with
resentment. On one side of the desk was a bundle of bills, and
these filled him with irritation. One especially seemed
preposterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey's death Emma had ordered
from the florist masses of white flowers for the room in which the
dead woman lay. It was sheer waste of money. Emma took far too much
upon herself. Even if there had been no financial necessity, he
would have dismissed her.

  But Philip went to her, and hid his face in her
bosom, and wept as though his heart would break. And she, feeling
that he was almost her own son – she had taken him when he was a
month old – consoled him with soft words. She promised that she
would come and see him sometimes, and that she would never forget
him; and she told him about the country he was going to and about
her own home in Devonshire – her father kept a turnpike on the
high-road that led to Exeter, and there were pigs in the sty, and
there was a cow, and the cow had just had a calf – till Philip
forgot his tears and grew excited at the thought of his approaching
journey. Presently she put him down, for there was much to be done,
and he helped her to lay out his clothes on the bed. She sent him
into the nursery to gather up his toys, and in a little while he
was playing happily.

  But at last he grew tired of being alone and went
back to the bed-room, in which Emma was now putting his things into
a big tin box; he remembered then that his uncle had said he might
take something to remember his father and mother by. He told Emma
and asked her what he should take.

  "You'd better go into the drawing-room and see what
you fancy."

  "Uncle William's there."

  "Never mind that. They're your own things now."

  Philip went downstairs slowly and found the door
open. Mr. Carey had left the room. Philip walked slowly round. They
had been in the house so short a time that there was little in it
that had a particular interest to him. It was a stranger's room,
and Philip saw nothing that struck his fancy. But he knew which
were his mother's things and which belonged to the landlord, and
presently fixed on a little clock that he had once heard his mother
say she liked. With this he walked again rather disconsolately
upstairs. Outside the door of his mother's bed-room he stopped and
listened. Though no one had told him not to go in, he had a feeling
that it would be wrong to do so; he was a little frightened, and
his heart beat uncomfortably; but at the same time something
impelled him to turn the handle. He turned it very gently, as if to
prevent anyone within from hearing, and then slowly pushed the door
open. He stood on the threshold for a moment before he had the
courage to enter. He was not frightened now, but it seemed strange.
He closed the door behind him. The blinds were drawn, and the room,
in the cold light of a January afternoon, was dark. On the
dressing-table were Mrs. Carey's brushes and the hand mirror. In a
little tray were hairpins. There was a photograph of himself on the
chimney-piece and one of his father. He had often been in the room
when his mother was not in it, but now it seemed different. There
was something curious in the look of the chairs. The bed was made
as though someone were going to sleep in it that night, and in a
case on the pillow was a night-dress.

  Philip opened a large cupboard filled with dresses
and, stepping in, took as many of them as he could in his arms and
buried his face in them. They smelt of the scent his mother used.
Then he pulled open the drawers, filled with his mother's things,
and looked at them: there were lavender bags among the linen, and
their scent was fresh and pleasant. The strangeness of the room
left it, and it seemed to him that his mother had just gone out for
a walk. She would be in presently and would come upstairs to have
nursery tea with him. And he seemed to feel her kiss on his
lips.

  It was not true that he would never see her again.
It was not true simply because it was impossible. He climbed up on
the bed and put his head on the pillow. He lay there quite
still.

  Philip parted from Emma with tears, but the journey
to Blackstable amused him, and, when they arrived, he was resigned
and cheerful. Blackstable was sixty miles from London. Giving their
luggage to a porter, Mr. Carey set out to walk with Philip to the
vicarage; it took them little more than five minutes, and, when
they reached it, Philip suddenly remembered the gate. It was red
and five-barred: it swung both ways on easy hinges; and it was
possible, though forbidden, to swing backwards and forwards on it.
They walked through the garden to the front-door. This was only
used by visitors and on Sundays, and on special occasions, as when
the Vicar went up to London or came back. The traffic of the house
took place through a side-door, and there was a back door as well
for the gardener and for beggars and tramps. It was a fairly large
house of yellow brick, with a red roof, built about five and twenty
years before in an ecclesiastical style. The front-door was like a
church porch, and the drawing-room windows were gothic.

  Mrs. Carey, knowing by what train they were coming,
waited in the drawing-room and listened for the click of the gate.
When she heard it she went to the door.

  "There's Aunt Louisa," said Mr. Carey, when he saw
her. "Run and give her a kiss."

  Philip started to run, awkwardly, trailing his
club-foot, and then stopped. Mrs. Carey was a little, shrivelled
woman of the same age as her husband, with a face extraordinarily
filled with deep wrinkles, and pale blue eyes. Her gray hair was
arranged in ringlets according to the fashion of her youth. She
wore a black dress, and her only ornament was a gold chain, from
which hung a cross. She had a shy manner and a gentle voice.

  "Did you walk, William?" she said, almost
reproachfully, as she kissed her husband.

  "I didn't think of it," he answered, with a glance
at his nephew.

  "It didn't hurt you to walk, Philip, did it?" she
asked the child.

  "No. I always walk."

  He was a little surprised at their conversation.
Aunt Louisa told him to come in, and they entered the hall. It was
paved with red and yellow tiles, on which alternately were a Greek
Cross and the Lamb of God. An imposing staircase led out of the
hall. It was of polished pine, with a peculiar smell, and had been
put in because fortunately, when the church was reseated, enough
wood remained over. The balusters were decorated with emblems of
the Four Evangelists.

  "I've had the stove lighted as I thought you'd be
cold after your journey," said Mrs. Carey.

  It was a large black stove that stood in the hall
and was only lighted if the weather was very bad and the Vicar had
a cold. It was not lighted if Mrs. Carey had a cold. Coal was
expensive. Besides, Mary Ann, the maid, didn't like fires all over
the place. If they wanted all them fires they must keep a second
girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs. Carey lived in the dining-room so
that one fire should do, and in the summer they could not get out
of the habit, so the drawing-room was used only by Mr. Carey on
Sunday afternoons for his nap. But every Saturday he had a fire in
the study so that he could write his sermon.

  Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into
a tiny bed-room that looked out on the drive. Immediately in front
of the window was a large tree, which Philip remembered now because
the branches were so low that it was possible to climb quite high
up it.