Of Human Bondage (68 page)

  "I have to be rather careful what I say," she told
him, "as there's another lady here whose husband's in the Indian
Civil."

  "I wouldn't let that disturb me if I were you," said
Philip. "I'm convinced that her husband and yours went out on the
same boat."

  "What boat?" she asked innocently.

  "The Flying Dutchman."

  Mildred was safely delivered of a daughter, and when
Philip was allowed to see her the child was lying by her side.
Mildred was very weak, but relieved that everything was over. She
showed him the baby, and herself looked at it curiously.

  "It's a funny-looking little thing, isn't it? I
can't believe it's mine."

  It was red and wrinkled and odd. Philip smiled when
he looked at it. He did not quite know what to say; and it
embarrassed him because the nurse who owned the house was standing
by his side; and he felt by the way she was looking at him that,
disbelieving Mildred's complicated story, she thought he was the
father.

  "What are you going to call her?" asked Philip.

  "I can't make up my mind if I shall call her
Madeleine or Cecilia."

  The nurse left them alone for a few minutes, and
Philip bent down and kissed Mildred on the mouth.

  "I'm so glad it's all over happily, darling."

  She put her thin arms round his neck.

  "You have been a brick to me, Phil dear."

  "Now I feel that you're mine at last. I've waited so
long for you, my dear."

  They heard the nurse at the door, and Philip
hurriedly got up. The nurse entered. There was a slight smile on
her lips.

  Three weeks later Philip saw Mildred and her baby
off to Brighton. She had made a quick recovery and looked better
than he had ever seen her. She was going to a boarding-house where
she had spent a couple of weekends with Emil Miller, and had
written to say that her husband was obliged to go to Germany on
business and she was coming down with her baby. She got pleasure
out of the stories she invented, and she showed a certain fertility
of invention in the working out of the details. Mildred proposed to
find in Brighton some woman who would be willing to take charge of
the baby. Philip was startled at the callousness with which she
insisted on getting rid of it so soon, but she argued with common
sense that the poor child had much better be put somewhere before
it grew used to her. Philip had expected the maternal instinct to
make itself felt when she had had the baby two or three weeks and
had counted on this to help him persuade her to keep it; but
nothing of the sort occurred. Mildred was not unkind to her baby;
she did all that was necessary; it amused her sometimes, and she
talked about it a good deal; but at heart she was indifferent to
it. She could not look upon it as part of herself. She fancied it
resembled its father already. She was continually wondering how she
would manage when it grew older; and she was exasperated with
herself for being such a fool as to have it at all.

  "If I'd only known then all I do now," she said.

  She laughed at Philip, because he was anxious about
its welfare.

  "You couldn't make more fuss if you was the father,"
she said. "I'd like to see Emil getting into such a stew about
it."

  Philip's mind was full of the stories he had heard
of baby-farming and the ghouls who ill-treat the wretched children
that selfish, cruel parents have put in their charge.

  "Don't be so silly," said Mildred. "That's when you
give a woman a sum down to look after a baby. But when you're going
to pay so much a week it's to their interest to look after it
well."

  Philip insisted that Mildred should place the child
with people who had no children of their own and would promise to
take no other.

  "Don't haggle about the price," he said. "I'd rather
pay half a guinea a week than run any risk of the kid being starved
or beaten."

  "You're a funny old thing, Philip," she laughed.

  To him there was something very touching in the
child's helplessness. It was small, ugly, and querulous. Its birth
had been looked forward to with shame and anguish. Nobody wanted
it. It was dependent on him, a stranger, for food, shelter, and
clothes to cover its nakedness.

  As the train started he kissed Mildred. He would
have kissed the baby too, but he was afraid she would laugh at
him.

  "You will write to me, darling, won't you? And I
shall look forward to your coming back with oh! such
impatience."

  "Mind you get through your exam."

  He had been working for it industriously, and now
with only ten days before him he made a final effort. He was very
anxious to pass, first to save himself time and expense, for money
had been slipping through his fingers during the last four months
with incredible speed; and then because this examination marked the
end of the drudgery: after that the student had to do with
medicine, midwifery, and surgery, the interest of which was more
vivid than the anatomy and physiology with which he had been
hitherto concerned. Philip looked forward with interest to the rest
of the curriculum. Nor did he want to have to confess to Mildred
that he had failed: though the examination was difficult and the
majority of candidates were ploughed at the first attempt, he knew
that she would think less well of him if he did not succeed; she
had a peculiarly humiliating way of showing what she thought.

  Mildred sent him a postcard to announce her safe
arrival, and he snatched half an hour every day to write a long
letter to her. He had always a certain shyness in expressing
himself by word of mouth, but he found he could tell her, pen in
hand, all sorts of things which it would have made him feel
ridiculous to say. Profiting by the discovery he poured out to her
his whole heart. He had never been able to tell her before how his
adoration filled every part of him so that all his actions, all his
thoughts, were touched with it. He wrote to her of the future, the
happiness that lay before him, and the gratitude which he owed her.
He asked himself (he had often asked himself before but had never
put it into words) what it was in her that filled him with such
extravagant delight; he did not know; he knew only that when she
was with him he was happy, and when she was away from him the world
was on a sudden cold and gray; he knew only that when he thought of
her his heart seemed to grow big in his body so that it was
difficult to breathe (as if it pressed against his lungs) and it
throbbed, so that the delight of her presence was almost pain; his
knees shook, and he felt strangely weak as though, not having
eaten, he were tremulous from want of food. He looked forward
eagerly to her answers. He did not expect her to write often, for
he knew that letter-writing came difficultly to her; and he was
quite content with the clumsy little note that arrived in reply to
four of his. She spoke of the boarding-house in which she had taken
a room, of the weather and the baby, told him she had been for a
walk on the front with a lady-friend whom she had met in the
boarding-house and who had taken such a fancy to baby, she was
going to the theatre on Saturday night, and Brighton was filling
up. It touched Philip because it was so matter-of-fact. The crabbed
style, the formality of the matter, gave him a queer desire to
laugh and to take her in his arms and kiss her.

  He went into the examination with happy confidence.
There was nothing in either of the papers that gave him trouble. He
knew that he had done well, and though the second part of the
examination was viva voce and he was more nervous, he managed to
answer the questions adequately. He sent a triumphant telegram to
Mildred when the result was announced.

  When he got back to his rooms Philip found a letter
from her, saying that she thought it would be better for her to
stay another week in Brighton. She had found a woman who would be
glad to take the baby for seven shillings a week, but she wanted to
make inquiries about her, and she was herself benefiting so much by
the sea-air that she was sure a few days more would do her no end
of good. She hated asking Philip for money, but would he send some
by return, as she had had to buy herself a new hat, she couldn't go
about with her lady-friend always in the same hat, and her
lady-friend was so dressy. Philip had a moment of bitter
disappointment. It took away all his pleasure at getting through
his examination.

  "If she loved me one quarter as much as I love her
she couldn't bear to stay away a day longer than necessary."

  He put the thought away from him quickly; it was
pure selfishness; of course her health was more important than
anything else. But he had nothing to do now; he might spend the
week with her in Brighton, and they could be together all day. His
heart leaped at the thought. It would be amusing to appear before
Mildred suddenly with the information that he had taken a room in
the boarding-house. He looked out trains. But he paused. He was not
certain that she would be pleased to see him; she had made friends
in Brighton; he was quiet, and she liked boisterous joviality; he
realised that she amused herself more with other people than with
him. It would torture him if he felt for an instant that he was in
the way. He was afraid to risk it. He dared not even write and
suggest that, with nothing to keep him in town, he would like to
spend the week where he could see her every day. She knew he had
nothing to do; if she wanted him to come she would have asked him
to. He dared not risk the anguish he would suffer if he proposed to
come and she made excuses to prevent him.

  He wrote to her next day, sent her a five-pound
note, and at the end of his letter said that if she were very nice
and cared to see him for the week-end he would be glad to run down;
but she was by no means to alter any plans she had made. He awaited
her answer with impatience. In it she said that if she had only
known before she could have arranged it, but she had promised to go
to a music-hall on the Saturday night; besides, it would make the
people at the boarding-house talk if he stayed there. Why did he
not come on Sunday morning and spend the day? They could lunch at
the Metropole, and she would take him afterwards to see the very
superior lady-like person who was going to take the baby.

  Sunday. He blessed the day because it was fine. As
the train approached Brighton the sun poured through the carriage
window. Mildred was waiting for him on the platform.

  "How jolly of you to come and meet me!" he cried, as
he seized her hands.

  "You expected me, didn't you?"

  "I hoped you would. I say, how well you're
looking."

  "It's done me a rare lot of good, but I think I'm
wise to stay here as long as I can. And there are a very nice class
of people at the boarding-house. I wanted cheering up after seeing
nobody all these months. It was dull sometimes."

  She looked very smart in her new hat, a large black
straw with a great many inexpensive flowers on it; and round her
neck floated a long boa of imitation swansdown. She was still very
thin, and she stooped a little when she walked (she had always done
that,) but her eyes did not seem so large; and though she never had
any colour, her skin had lost the earthy look it had. They walked
down to the sea. Philip, remembering he had not walked with her for
months, grew suddenly conscious of his limp and walked stiffly in
the attempt to conceal it.

  "Are you glad to see me?" he asked, love dancing
madly in his heart.

  "Of course I am. You needn't ask that."

  "By the way, Griffiths sends you his love."

  "What cheek!"

  He had talked to her a great deal of Griffiths. He
had told her how flirtatious he was and had amused her often with
the narration of some adventure which Griffiths under the seal of
secrecy had imparted to him. Mildred had listened, with some
pretence of disgust sometimes, but generally with curiosity; and
Philip, admiringly, had enlarged upon his friend's good looks and
charm.