Of Human Bondage (59 page)

  Though she never mentioned the change, for she did
not take any conscious notice of it, it affected her nevertheless:
she became more confidential with him; she took her little
grievances to him, and she always had some grievance against the
manageress of the shop, one of her fellow waitresses, or her aunt;
she was talkative enough now, and though she never said anything
that was not trivial Philip was never tired of listening to
her.

  "I like you when you don't want to make love to me,"
she told him once.

  "That's flattering for me," he laughed.

  She did not realise how her words made his heart
sink nor what an effort it needed for him to answer so lightly.

  "Oh, I don't mind your kissing me now and then. It
doesn't hurt me and it gives you pleasure."

  Occasionally she went so far as to ask him to take
her out to dinner, and the offer, coming from her, filled him with
rapture.

  "I wouldn't do it to anyone else," she said, by way
of apology. "But I know I can with you."

  "You couldn't give me greater pleasure," he
smiled.

  She asked him to give her something to eat one
evening towards the end of April.

  "All right," he said. "Where would you like to go
afterwards?"

  "Oh, don't let's go anywhere. Let's just sit and
talk. You don't mind, do you?"

  "Rather not."

  He thought she must be beginning to care for him.
Three months before the thought of an evening spent in conversation
would have bored her to death. It was a fine day, and the spring
added to Philip's high spirits. He was content with very little
now.

  "I say, won't it be ripping when the summer comes
along," he said, as they drove along on the top of a 'bus to Soho –
she had herself suggested that they should not be so extravagant as
to go by cab. "We shall be able to spend every Sunday on the river.
We'll take our luncheon in a basket."

  She smiled slightly, and he was encouraged to take
her hand. She did not withdraw it.

  "I really think you're beginning to like me a bit,"
he smiled.

  "You ARE silly, you know I like you, or else I
shouldn't be here, should I?"

  They were old customers at the little restaurant in
Soho by now, and the patronne gave them a smile as they came in.
The waiter was obsequious.

  "Let me order the dinner tonight," said Mildred.

  Philip, thinking her more enchanting than ever, gave
her the menu, and she chose her favourite dishes. The range was
small, and they had eaten many times all that the restaurant could
provide. Philip was gay. He looked into her eyes, and he dwelt on
every perfection of her pale cheek. When they had finished Mildred
by way of exception took a cigarette. She smoked very seldom.

  "I don't like to see a lady smoking," she said.

  She hesitated a moment and then spoke.

  "Were you surprised, my asking you to take me out
and give me a bit of dinner tonight?"

  "I was delighted."

  "I've got something to say to you, Philip."

  He looked at her quickly, his heart sank, but he had
trained himself well.

  "Well, fire away," he said, smiling.

  "You're not going to be silly about it, are you? The
fact is I'm going to get married."

  "Are you?" said Philip.

  He could think of nothing else to say. He had
considered the possibility often and had imagined to himself what
he would do and say. He had suffered agonies when he thought of the
despair he would suffer, he had thought of suicide, of the mad
passion of anger that would seize him; but perhaps he had too
completely anticipated the emotion he would experience, so that now
he felt merely exhausted. He felt as one does in a serious illness
when the vitality is so low that one is indifferent to the issue
and wants only to be left alone.

  "You see, I'm getting on," she said. "I'm
twenty-four and it's time I settled down."

  He was silent. He looked at the patronne sitting
behind the counter, and his eye dwelt on a red feather one of the
diners wore in her hat. Mildred was nettled.

  "You might congratulate me," she said.

  "I might, mightn't I? I can hardly believe it's
true. I've dreamt it so often. It rather tickles me that I should
have been so jolly glad that you asked me to take you out to
dinner. Whom are you going to marry?"

  "Miller," she answered, with a slight blush.

  "Miller?" cried Philip, astounded. "But you've not
seen him for months."

  "He came in to lunch one day last week and asked me
then. He's earning very good money. He makes seven pounds a week
now and he's got prospects."

  Philip was silent again. He remembered that she had
always liked Miller; he amused her; there was in his foreign birth
an exotic charm which she felt unconsciously.

  "I suppose it was inevitable," he said at last. "You
were bound to accept the highest bidder. When are you going to
marry?"

  "On Saturday next. I have given notice."

  Philip felt a sudden pang.

  "As soon as that?"

  "We're going to be married at a registry office.
Emil prefers it."

  Philip felt dreadfully tired. He wanted to get away
from her. He thought he would go straight to bed. He called for the
bill.

  "I'll put you in a cab and send you down to
Victoria. I daresay you won't have to wait long for a train."

  "Won't you come with me?"

  "I think I'd rather not if you don't mind."

  "It's just as you please," she answered haughtily.
"I suppose I shall see you at tea-time tomorrow?"

  "No, I think we'd better make a full stop now. I
don't see why I should go on making myself unhappy. I've paid the
cab."

  He nodded to her and forced a smile on his lips,
then jumped on a 'bus and made his way home. He smoked a pipe
before he went to bed, but he could hardly keep his eyes open. He
suffered no pain. He fell into a heavy sleep almost as soon as his
head touched the pillow.

  But about three in the morning Philip awoke and
could not sleep again. He began to think of Mildred. He tried not
to, but could not help himself. He repeated to himself the same
thing time after time till his brain reeled. It was inevitable that
she should marry: life was hard for a girl who had to earn her own
living; and if she found someone who could give her a comfortable
home she should not be blamed if she accepted. Philip acknowledged
that from her point of view it would have been madness to marry
him: only love could have made such poverty bearable, and she did
not love him. It was no fault of hers; it was a fact that must be
accepted like any other. Philip tried to reason with himself. He
told himself that deep down in his heart was mortified pride; his
passion had begun in wounded vanity, and it was this at bottom
which caused now a great part of his wretchedness. He despised
himself as much as he despised her. Then he made plans for the
future, the same plans over and over again, interrupted by
recollections of kisses on her soft pale cheek and by the sound of
her voice with its trailing accent; he had a great deal of work to
do, since in the summer he was taking chemistry as well as the two
examinations he had failed in. He had separated himself from his
friends at the hospital, but now he wanted companionship. There was
one happy occurrence: Hayward a fortnight before had written to say
that he was passing through London and had asked him to dinner; but
Philip, unwilling to be bothered, had refused. He was coming back
for the season, and Philip made up his mind to write to him.

  He was thankful when eight o'clock struck and he
could get up. He was pale and weary. But when he had bathed,
dressed, and had breakfast, he felt himself joined up again with
the world at large; and his pain was a little easier to bear. He
did not feel like going to lectures that morning, but went instead
to the Army and Navy Stores to buy Mildred a wedding-present. After
much wavering he settled on a dressing-bag. It cost twenty pounds,
which was much more than he could afford, but it was showy and
vulgar: he knew she would be aware exactly how much it cost; he got
a melancholy satisfaction in choosing a gift which would give her
pleasure and at the same time indicate for himself the contempt he
had for her.

  Philip had looked forward with apprehension to the
day on which Mildred was to be married; he was expecting an
intolerable anguish; and it was with relief that he got a letter
from Hayward on Saturday morning to say that he was coming up early
on that very day and would fetch Philip to help him to find rooms.
Philip, anxious to be distracted, looked up a time-table and
discovered the only train Hayward was likely to come by; he went to
meet him, and the reunion of the friends was enthusiastic. They
left the luggage at the station, and set off gaily. Hayward
characteristically proposed that first of all they should go for an
hour to the National Gallery; he had not seen pictures for some
time, and he stated that it needed a glimpse to set him in tune
with life. Philip for months had had no one with whom he could talk
of art and books. Since the Paris days Hayward had immersed himself
in the modern French versifiers, and, such a plethora of poets is
there in France, he had several new geniuses to tell Philip about.
They walked through the gallery pointing out to one another their
favourite pictures; one subject led to another; they talked
excitedly. The sun was shining and the air was warm.

  "Let's go and sit in the Park," said Hayward. "We'll
look for rooms after luncheon."

  The spring was pleasant there. It was a day upon
which one felt it good merely to live. The young green of the trees
was exquisite against the sky; and the sky, pale and blue, was
dappled with little white clouds. At the end of the ornamental
water was the gray mass of the Horse Guards. The ordered elegance
of the scene had the charm of an eighteenth-century picture. It
reminded you not of Watteau, whose landscapes are so idyllic that
they recall only the woodland glens seen in dreams, but of the more
prosaic Jean-Baptiste Pater. Philip's heart was filled with
lightness. He realised, what he had only read before, that art (for
there was art in the manner in which he looked upon nature) might
liberate the soul from pain.

  They went to an Italian restaurant for luncheon and
ordered themselves a fiaschetto of Chianti. Lingering over the meal
they talked on. They reminded one another of the people they had
known at Heidelberg, they spoke of Philip's friends in Paris, they
talked of books, pictures, morals, life; and suddenly Philip heard
a clock strike three. He remembered that by this time Mildred was
married. He felt a sort of stitch in his heart, and for a minute or
two he could not hear what Hayward was saying. But he filled his
glass with Chianti. He was unaccustomed to alcohol and it had gone
to his head. For the time at all events he was free from care. His
quick brain had lain idle for so many months that he was
intoxicated now with conversation. He was thankful to have someone
to talk to who would interest himself in the things that interested
him.

  "I say don't let's waste this beautiful day in
looking for rooms. I'll put you up tonight. You can look for rooms
tomorrow or Monday."

  "All right. What shall we do?" answered Hayward.

  "Let's get on a penny steamboat and go down to
Greenwich."

  The idea appealed to Hayward, and they jumped into a
cab which took them to Westminster Bridge. They got on the
steamboat just as she was starting. Presently Philip, a smile on
his lips, spoke.

  "I remember when first I went to Paris, Clutton, I
think it was, gave a long discourse on the subject that beauty is
put into things by painters and poets. They create beauty. In
themselves there is nothing to choose between the Campanile of
Giotto and a factory chimney. And then beautiful things grow rich
with the emotion that they have aroused in succeeding generations.
That is why old things are more beautiful than modern. The Ode on a
Grecian Urn is more lovely now than when it was written, because
for a hundred years lovers have read it and the sick at heart taken
comfort in its lines."