Of Human Bondage (53 page)

  "I've not finished yet," he said to himself.

  The day after he sat down in his old seat, and when
she came up said good-evening as though he had not ignored her for
a week. His face was placid, but he could not prevent the mad
beating of his heart. At that time the musical comedy had lately
leaped into public favour, and he was sure that Mildred would be
delighted to go to one.

  "I say," he said suddenly, "I wonder if you'd dine
with me one night and come to The Belle of New York. I'll get a
couple of stalls."

  He added the last sentence in order to tempt her. He
knew that when the girls went to the play it was either in the pit,
or, if some man took them, seldom to more expensive seats than the
upper circle. Mildred's pale face showed no change of
expression.

  "I don't mind," she said.

  "When will you come?"

  "I get off early on Thursdays."

  They made arrangements. Mildred lived with an aunt
at Herne Hill. The play began at eight so they must dine at seven.
She proposed that he should meet her in the second-class
waiting-room at Victoria Station. She showed no pleasure, but
accepted the invitation as though she conferred a favour. Philip
was vaguely irritated.

  Philip arrived at Victoria Station nearly half an
hour before the time which Mildred had appointed, and sat down in
the second-class waiting-room. He waited and she did not come. He
began to grow anxious, and walked into the station watching the
incoming suburban trains; the hour which she had fixed passed, and
still there was no sign of her. Philip was impatient. He went into
the other waiting-rooms and looked at the people sitting in them.
Suddenly his heart gave a great thud.

  "There you are. I thought you were never
coming."

  "I like that after keeping me waiting all this time.
I had half a mind to go back home again."

  "But you said you'd come to the second-class
waiting-room."

  "I didn't say any such thing. It isn't exactly
likely I'd sit in the second-class room when I could sit in the
first is it?"

  Though Philip was sure he had not made a mistake, he
said nothing, and they got into a cab.

  "Where are we dining?" she asked.

  "I thought of the Adelphi Restaurant. Will that suit
you?"

  "I don't mind where we dine."

  She spoke ungraciously. She was put out by being
kept waiting and answered Philip's attempt at conversation with
monosyllables. She wore a long cloak of some rough, dark material
and a crochet shawl over her head. They reached the restaurant and
sat down at a table. She looked round with satisfaction. The red
shades to the candles on the tables, the gold of the decorations,
the looking-glasses, lent the room a sumptuous air.

  "I've never been here before."

  She gave Philip a smile. She had taken off her
cloak; and he saw that she wore a pale blue dress, cut square at
the neck; and her hair was more elaborately arranged than ever. He
had ordered champagne and when it came her eyes sparkled.

  "You are going it," she said.

  "Because I've ordered fiz?" he asked carelessly, as
though he never drank anything else.

  "I WAS surprised when you asked me to do a theatre
with you." Conversation did not go very easily, for she did not
seem to have much to say; and Philip was nervously conscious that
he was not amusing her. She listened carelessly to his remarks,
with her eyes on other diners, and made no pretence that she was
interested in him. He made one or two little jokes, but she took
them quite seriously. The only sign of vivacity he got was when he
spoke of the other girls in the shop; she could not bear the
manageress and told him all her misdeeds at length.

  "I can't stick her at any price and all the air she
gives herself. Sometimes I've got more than half a mind to tell her
something she doesn't think I know anything about."

  "What is that?" asked Philip.

  "Well, I happen to know that she's not above going
to Eastbourne with a man for the week-end now and again. One of the
girls has a married sister who goes there with her husband, and
she's seen her. She was staying at the same boarding-house, and she
'ad a wedding-ring on, and I know for one she's not married."

  Philip filled her glass, hoping that champagne would
make her more affable; he was anxious that his little jaunt should
be a success. He noticed that she held her knife as though it were
a pen-holder, and when she drank protruded her little finger. He
started several topics of conversation, but he could get little out
of her, and he remembered with irritation that he had seen her
talking nineteen to the dozen and laughing with the German. They
finished dinner and went to the play. Philip was a very cultured
young man, and he looked upon musical comedy with scorn. He thought
the jokes vulgar and the melodies obvious; it seemed to him that
they did these things much better in France; but Mildred enjoyed
herself thoroughly; she laughed till her sides ached, looking at
Philip now and then when something tickled her to exchange a glance
of pleasure; and she applauded rapturously.

  "This is the seventh time I've been," she said,
after the first act, "and I don't mind if I come seven times
more."

  She was much interested in the women who surrounded
them in the stalls. She pointed out to Philip those who were
painted and those who wore false hair.

  "It is horrible, these West-end people," she said.
"I don't know how they can do it." She put her hand to her hair.
"Mine's all my own, every bit of it."

  She found no one to admire, and whenever she spoke
of anyone it was to say something disagreeable. It made Philip
uneasy. He supposed that next day she would tell the girls in the
shop that he had taken her out and that he had bored her to death.
He disliked her, and yet, he knew not why, he wanted to be with
her. On the way home he asked:

  "I hope you've enjoyed yourself?"

  "Rather."

  "Will you come out with me again one evening?"

  "I don't mind."

  He could never get beyond such expressions as that.
Her indifference maddened him.

  "That sounds as if you didn't much care if you came
or not."

  "Oh, if you don't take me out some other fellow
will. I need never want for men who'll take me to the theatre."

  Philip was silent. They came to the station, and he
went to the booking-office.

  "I've got my season," she said.

  "I thought I'd take you home as it's rather late, if
you don't mind."

  "Oh, I don't mind if it gives you any pleasure."

  He took a single first for her and a return for
himself.

  "Well, you're not mean, I will say that for you,"
she said, when he opened the carriage-door.

  Philip did not know whether he was pleased or sorry
when other people entered and it was impossible to speak. They got
out at Herne Hill, and he accompanied her to the corner of the road
in which she lived.

  "I'll say good-night to you here," she said, holding
out her hand. "You'd better not come up to the door. I know what
people are, and I don't want to have anybody talking."

  She said good-night and walked quickly away. He
could see the white shawl in the darkness. He thought she might
turn round, but she did not. Philip saw which house she went into,
and in a moment he walked along to look at it. It was a trim,
common little house of yellow brick, exactly like all the other
little houses in the street. He stood outside for a few minutes,
and presently the window on the top floor was darkened. Philip
strolled slowly back to the station. The evening had been
unsatisfactory. He felt irritated, restless, and miserable.

  When he lay in bed he seemed still to see her
sitting in the corner of the railway carriage, with the white
crochet shawl over her head. He did not know how he was to get
through the hours that must pass before his eyes rested on her
again. He thought drowsily of her thin face, with its delicate
features, and the greenish pallor of her skin. He was not happy
with her, but he was unhappy away from her. He wanted to sit by her
side and look at her, he wanted to touch her, he wanted... the
thought came to him and he did not finish it, suddenly he grew wide
awake... he wanted to kiss the thin, pale mouth with its narrow
lips. The truth came to him at last. He was in love with her. It
was incredible.

  He had often thought of falling in love, and there
was one scene which he had pictured to himself over and over again.
He saw himself coming into a ball-room; his eyes fell on a little
group of men and women talking; and one of the women turned round.
Her eyes fell upon him, and he knew that the gasp in his throat was
in her throat too. He stood quite still. She was tall and dark and
beautiful with eyes like the night; she was dressed in white, and
in her black hair shone diamonds; they stared at one another,
forgetting that people surrounded them. He went straight up to her,
and she moved a little towards him. Both felt that the formality of
introduction was out of place. He spoke to her.

  "I've been looking for you all my life," he
said.

  "You've come at last," she murmured.

  "Will you dance with me?"

  She surrendered herself to his outstretched hands
and they danced. (Philip always pretended that he was not lame.)
She danced divinely.

  "I've never danced with anyone who danced like you,"
she said.

  She tore up her programme, and they danced together
the whole evening.

  "I'm so thankful that I waited for you," he said to
her. "I knew that in the end I must meet you."

  People in the ball-room stared. They did not care.
They did not wish to hide their passion. At last they went into the
garden. He flung a light cloak over her shoulders and put her in a
waiting cab. They caught the midnight train to Paris; and they sped
through the silent, star-lit night into the unknown.

  He thought of this old fancy of his, and it seemed
impossible that he should be in love with Mildred Rogers. Her name
was grotesque. He did not think her pretty; he hated the thinness
of her, only that evening he had noticed how the bones of her chest
stood out in evening-dress; he went over her features one by one;
he did not like her mouth, and the unhealthiness of her colour
vaguely repelled him. She was common. Her phrases, so bald and few,
constantly repeated, showed the emptiness of her mind; he recalled
her vulgar little laugh at the jokes of the musical comedy; and he
remembered the little finger carefully extended when she held her
glass to her mouth; her manners like her conversation, were
odiously genteel. He remembered her insolence; sometimes he had
felt inclined to box her ears; and suddenly, he knew not why,
perhaps it was the thought of hitting her or the recollection of
her tiny, beautiful ears, he was seized by an uprush of emotion. He
yearned for her. He thought of taking her in his arms, the thin,
fragile body, and kissing her pale mouth: he wanted to pass his
fingers down the slightly greenish cheeks. He wanted her.

  He had thought of love as a rapture which seized one
so that all the world seemed spring-like, he had looked forward to
an ecstatic happiness; but this was not happiness; it was a hunger
of the soul, it was a painful yearning, it was a bitter anguish, he
had never known before. He tried to think when it had first come to
him. He did not know. He only remembered that each time he had gone
into the shop, after the first two or three times, it had been with
a little feeling in the heart that was pain; and he remembered that
when she spoke to him he felt curiously breathless. When she left
him it was wretchedness, and when she came to him again it was
despair.

  He stretched himself in his bed as a dog stretches
himself. He wondered how he was going to endure that ceaseless
aching of his soul.