Of Human Bondage (25 page)

  Hayward, after saying for a month that he was going
South next day and delaying from week to week out of inability to
make up his mind to the bother of packing and the tedium of a
journey, had at last been driven off just before Christmas by the
preparations for that festival. He could not support the thought of
a Teutonic merry-making. It gave him goose-flesh to think of the
season's aggressive cheerfulness, and in his desire to avoid the
obvious he determined to travel on Christmas Eve.

  Philip was not sorry to see him off, for he was a
downright person and it irritated him that anybody should not know
his own mind. Though much under Hayward's influence, he would not
grant that indecision pointed to a charming sensitiveness; and he
resented the shadow of a sneer with which Hayward looked upon his
straight ways. They corresponded. Hayward was an admirable
letter-writer, and knowing his talent took pains with his letters.
His temperament was receptive to the beautiful influences with
which he came in contact, and he was able in his letters from Rome
to put a subtle fragrance of Italy. He thought the city of the
ancient Romans a little vulgar, finding distinction only in the
decadence of the Empire; but the Rome of the Popes appealed to his
sympathy, and in his chosen words, quite exquisitely, there
appeared a rococo beauty. He wrote of old church music and the
Alban Hills, and of the languor of incense and the charm of the
streets by night, in the rain, when the pavements shone and the
light of the street lamps was mysterious. Perhaps he repeated these
admirable letters to various friends. He did not know what a
troubling effect they had upon Philip; they seemed to make his life
very humdrum. With the spring Hayward grew dithyrambic. He proposed
that Philip should come down to Italy. He was wasting his time at
Heidelberg. The Germans were gross and life there was common; how
could the soul come to her own in that prim landscape? In Tuscany
the spring was scattering flowers through the land, and Philip was
nineteen; let him come and they could wander through the mountain
towns of Umbria. Their names sang in Philip's heart. And Cacilie
too, with her lover, had gone to Italy. When he thought of them
Philip was seized with a restlessness he could not account for. He
cursed his fate because he had no money to travel, and he knew his
uncle would not send him more than the fifteen pounds a month which
had been agreed upon. He had not managed his allowance very well.
His pension and the price of his lessons left him very little over,
and he had found going about with Hayward expensive. Hayward had
often suggested excursions, a visit to the play, or a bottle of
wine, when Philip had come to the end of his month's money; and
with the folly of his age he had been unwilling to confess he could
not afford an extravagance.

  Luckily Hayward's letters came seldom, and in the
intervals Philip settled down again to his industrious life. He had
matriculated at the university and attended one or two courses of
lectures. Kuno Fischer was then at the height of his fame and
during the winter had been lecturing brilliantly on Schopenhauer.
It was Philip's introduction to philosophy. He had a practical mind
and moved uneasily amid the abstract; but he found an unexpected
fascination in listening to metaphysical disquisitions; they made
him breathless; it was a little like watching a tight-rope dancer
doing perilous feats over an abyss; but it was very exciting. The
pessimism of the subject attracted his youth; and he believed that
the world he was about to enter was a place of pitiless woe and of
darkness. That made him none the less eager to enter it; and when,
in due course, Mrs. Carey, acting as the correspondent for his
guardian's views, suggested that it was time for him to come back
to England, he agreed with enthusiasm. He must make up his mind now
what he meant to do. If he left Heidelberg at the end of July they
could talk things over during August, and it would be a good time
to make arrangements.

  The date of his departure was settled, and Mrs.
Carey wrote to him again. She reminded him of Miss Wilkinson,
through whose kindness he had gone to Frau Erlin's house at
Heidelberg, and told him that she had arranged to spend a few weeks
with them at Blackstable. She would be crossing from Flushing on
such and such a day, and if he travelled at the same time he could
look after her and come on to Blackstable in her company. Philip's
shyness immediately made him write to say that he could not leave
till a day or two afterwards. He pictured himself looking out for
Miss Wilkinson, the embarrassment of going up to her and asking if
it were she (and he might so easily address the wrong person and be
snubbed), and then the difficulty of knowing whether in the train
he ought to talk to her or whether he could ignore her and read his
book.

  At last he left Heidelberg. For three months he had
been thinking of nothing but the future; and he went without
regret. He never knew that he had been happy there. Fraulein Anna
gave him a copy of Der Trompeter von Sackingen and in return he
presented her with a volume of William Morris. Very wisely neither
of them ever read the other's present.

  Philip was surprised when he saw his uncle and aunt.
He had never noticed before that they were quite old people. The
Vicar received him with his usual, not unamiable indifference. He
was a little stouter, a little balder, a little grayer. Philip saw
how insignificant he was. His face was weak and self-indulgent.
Aunt Louisa took him in her arms and kissed him; and tears of
happiness flowed down her cheeks. Philip was touched and
embarrassed; he had not known with what a hungry love she cared for
him.

  "Oh, the time has seemed long since you've been
away, Philip," she cried.

  She stroked his hands and looked into his face with
glad eyes.

  "You've grown. You're quite a man now."

  There was a very small moustache on his upper lip.
He had bought a razor and now and then with infinite care shaved
the down off his smooth chin.

  "We've been so lonely without you." And then shyly,
with a little break in her voice, she asked: "You are glad to come
back to your home, aren't you?"

  "Yes, rather."

  She was so thin that she seemed almost transparent,
the arms she put round his neck were frail bones that reminded you
of chicken bones, and her faded face was oh! so wrinkled. The gray
curls which she still wore in the fashion of her youth gave her a
queer, pathetic look; and her little withered body was like an
autumn leaf, you felt it might be blown away by the first sharp
wind. Philip realised that they had done with life, these two quiet
little people: they belonged to a past generation, and they were
waiting there patiently, rather stupidly, for death; and he, in his
vigour and his youth, thirsting for excitement and adventure, was
appalled at the waste. They had done nothing, and when they went it
would be just as if they had never been. He felt a great pity for
Aunt Louisa, and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.

  Then Miss Wilkinson, who had kept discreetly out of
the way till the Careys had had a chance of welcoming their nephew,
came into the room.

  "This is Miss Wilkinson, Philip," said Mrs.
Carey.

  "The prodigal has returned," she said, holding out
her hand. "I have brought a rose for the prodigal's
buttonhole."

  With a gay smile she pinned to Philip's coat the
flower she had just picked in the garden. He blushed and felt
foolish. He knew that Miss Wilkinson was the daughter of his Uncle
William's last rector, and he had a wide acquaintance with the
daughters of clergymen. They wore ill-cut clothes and stout boots.
They were generally dressed in black, for in Philip's early years
at Blackstable homespuns had not reached East Anglia, and the
ladies of the clergy did not favour colours. Their hair was done
very untidily, and they smelt aggressively of starched linen. They
considered the feminine graces unbecoming and looked the same
whether they were old or young. They bore their religion
arrogantly. The closeness of their connection with the church made
them adopt a slightly dictatorial attitude to the rest of
mankind.

  Miss Wilkinson was very different. She wore a white
muslin gown stamped with gay little bunches of flowers, and
pointed, high-heeled shoes, with open-work stockings. To Philip's
inexperience it seemed that she was wonderfully dressed; he did not
see that her frock was cheap and showy. Her hair was elaborately
dressed, with a neat curl in the middle of the forehead: it was
very black, shiny and hard, and it looked as though it could never
be in the least disarranged. She had large black eyes and her nose
was slightly aquiline; in profile she had somewhat the look of a
bird of prey, but full face she was prepossessing. She smiled a
great deal, but her mouth was large and when she smiled she tried
to hide her teeth, which were big and rather yellow. But what
embarrassed Philip most was that she was heavily powdered: he had
very strict views on feminine behaviour and did not think a lady
ever powdered; but of course Miss Wilkinson was a lady because she
was a clergyman's daughter, and a clergyman was a gentleman.

  Philip made up his mind to dislike her thoroughly.
She spoke with a slight French accent; and he did not know why she
should, since she had been born and bred in the heart of England.
He thought her smile affected, and the coy sprightliness of her
manner irritated him. For two or three days he remained silent and
hostile, but Miss Wilkinson apparently did not notice it. She was
very affable. She addressed her conversation almost exclusively to
him, and there was something flattering in the way she appealed
constantly to his sane judgment. She made him laugh too, and Philip
could never resist people who amused him: he had a gift now and
then of saying neat things; and it was pleasant to have an
appreciative listener. Neither the Vicar nor Mrs. Carey had a sense
of humour, and they never laughed at anything he said. As he grew
used to Miss Wilkinson, and his shyness left him, he began to like
her better; he found the French accent picturesque; and at a garden
party which the doctor gave she was very much better dressed than
anyone else. She wore a blue foulard with large white spots, and
Philip was tickled at the sensation it caused.

  "I'm certain they think you're no better than you
should be," he told her, laughing.

  "It's the dream of my life to be taken for an
abandoned hussy," she answered.

  One day when Miss Wilkinson was in her room he asked
Aunt Louisa how old she was.

  "Oh, my dear, you should never ask a lady's age; but
she's certainly too old for you to marry."

  The Vicar gave his slow, obese smile.

  "She's no chicken, Louisa," he said. "She was nearly
grown up when we were in Lincolnshire, and that was twenty years
ago. She wore a pigtail hanging down her back."

  "She may not have been more than ten," said
Philip.

  "She was older than that," said Aunt Louisa.

  "I think she was near twenty," said the Vicar.

  "Oh no, William. Sixteen or seventeen at the
outside."

  "That would make her well over thirty," said
Philip.

  At that moment Miss Wilkinson tripped downstairs,
singing a song by Benjamin Goddard. She had put her hat on, for she
and Philip were going for a walk, and she held out her hand for him
to button her glove. He did it awkwardly. He felt embarrassed but
gallant. Conversation went easily between them now, and as they
strolled along they talked of all manner of things. She told Philip
about Berlin, and he told her of his year in Heidelberg. As he
spoke, things which had appeared of no importance gained a new
interest: he described the people at Frau Erlin's house; and to the
conversations between Hayward and Weeks, which at the time seemed
so significant, he gave a little twist, so that they looked absurd.
He was flattered at Miss Wilkinson's laughter.