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H. Stanley Redgrove - "Bygone Beliefs"

Charles Kingsley - "Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays"

Jerome K. Jerome - "Told After Supper"

Helen Keller - "Story of My Life"

Of Human Bondage

W >> W. Somerset Maugham >> Of Human Bondage




Suddenly he heard an unexpected noise. He pulled the handkerchief off his
face, got up from the sofa on which he was lying, and went into the
dining-room. Philip was seated on the table with all his bricks around
him. He had built a monstrous castle, and some defect in the foundation
had just brought the structure down in noisy ruin.

"What are you doing with those bricks, Philip? You know you're not allowed
to play games on Sunday."

Philip stared at him for a moment with frightened eyes, and, as his habit
was, flushed deeply.

"I always used to play at home," he answered.

"I'm sure your dear mamma never allowed you to do such a wicked thing as
that."

Philip did not know it was wicked; but if it was, he did not wish it to be
supposed that his mother had consented to it. He hung his head and did not
answer.

"Don't you know it's very, very wicked to play on Sunday? What d'you
suppose it's called the day of rest for? You're going to church tonight,
and how can you face your Maker when you've been breaking one of His laws
in the afternoon?"

Mr. Carey told him to put the bricks away at once, and stood over him
while Philip did so.

"You're a very naughty boy," he repeated. "Think of the grief you're
causing your poor mother in heaven."

Philip felt inclined to cry, but he had an instinctive disinclination to
letting other people see his tears, and he clenched his teeth to prevent
the sobs from escaping. Mr. Carey sat down in his arm-chair and began to
turn over the pages of a book. Philip stood at the window. The vicarage
was set back from the highroad to Tercanbury, and from the dining-room one
saw a semicircular strip of lawn and then as far as the horizon green
fields. Sheep were grazing in them. The sky was forlorn and gray. Philip
felt infinitely unhappy.

Presently Mary Ann came in to lay the tea, and Aunt Louisa descended the
stairs.

"Have you had a nice little nap, William?" she asked.

"No," he answered. "Philip made so much noise that I couldn't sleep a
wink."

This was not quite accurate, for he had been kept awake by his own
thoughts; and Philip, listening sullenly, reflected that he had only made
a noise once, and there was no reason why his uncle should not have slept
before or after. When Mrs. Carey asked for an explanation the Vicar
narrated the facts.

"He hasn't even said he was sorry," he finished.

"Oh, Philip, I'm sure you're sorry," said Mrs. Carey, anxious that the
child should not seem wickeder to his uncle than need be.

Philip did not reply. He went on munching his bread and butter. He did not
know what power it was in him that prevented him from making any
expression of regret. He felt his ears tingling, he was a little inclined
to cry, but no word would issue from his lips.

"You needn't make it worse by sulking," said Mr. Carey.

Tea was finished in silence. Mrs. Carey looked at Philip surreptitiously
now and then, but the Vicar elaborately ignored him. When Philip saw his
uncle go upstairs to get ready for church he went into the hall and got
his hat and coat, but when the Vicar came downstairs and saw him, he said:

"I don't wish you to go to church tonight, Philip. I don't think you're in
a proper frame of mind to enter the House of God."

Philip did not say a word. He felt it was a deep humiliation that was
placed upon him, and his cheeks reddened. He stood silently watching his
uncle put on his broad hat and his voluminous cloak. Mrs. Carey as usual
went to the door to see him off. Then she turned to Philip.

"Never mind, Philip, you won't be a naughty boy next Sunday, will you, and
then your uncle will take you to church with him in the evening."

She took off his hat and coat, and led him into the dining-room.

"Shall you and I read the service together, Philip, and we'll sing the
hymns at the harmonium. Would you like that?"

Philip shook his head decidedly. Mrs. Carey was taken aback. If he would
not read the evening service with her she did not know what to do with
him.

"Then what would you like to do until your uncle comes back?" she asked
helplessly.

Philip broke his silence at last.

"I want to be left alone," he said.

"Philip, how can you say anything so unkind? Don't you know that your
uncle and I only want your good? Don't you love me at all?"

"I hate you. I wish you was dead."

Mrs. Carey gasped. He said the words so savagely that it gave her quite a
start. She had nothing to say. She sat down in her husband's chair; and as
she thought of her desire to love the friendless, crippled boy and her
eager wish that he should love her--she was a barren woman and, even
though it was clearly God's will that she should be childless, she could
scarcely bear to look at little children sometimes, her heart ached
so--the tears rose to her eyes and one by one, slowly, rolled down her
cheeks. Philip watched her in amazement. She took out her handkerchief,
and now she cried without restraint. Suddenly Philip realised that she was
crying because of what he had said, and he was sorry. He went up to her
silently and kissed her. It was the first kiss he had ever given her
without being asked. And the poor lady, so small in her black satin,
shrivelled up and sallow, with her funny corkscrew curls, took the little
boy on her lap and put her arms around him and wept as though her heart
would break. But her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt
that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a new
love because he had made her suffer.



IX


On the following Sunday, when the Vicar was making his preparations to go
into the drawing-room for his nap--all the actions of his life were
conducted with ceremony--and Mrs. Carey was about to go upstairs, Philip
asked:

"What shall I do if I'm not allowed to play?"

"Can't you sit still for once and be quiet?"

"I can't sit still till tea-time."

Mr. Carey looked out of the window, but it was cold and raw, and he could
not suggest that Philip should go into the garden.

"I know what you can do. You can learn by heart the collect for the day."

He took the prayer-book which was used for prayers from the harmonium, and
turned the pages till he came to the place he wanted.

"It's not a long one. If you can say it without a mistake when I come in
to tea you shall have the top of my egg."

Mrs. Carey drew up Philip's chair to the dining-room table--they had
bought him a high chair by now--and placed the book in front of him.

"The devil finds work for idle hands to do," said Mr. Carey.

He put some more coals on the fire so that there should be a cheerful
blaze when he came in to tea, and went into the drawing-room. He loosened
his collar, arranged the cushions, and settled himself comfortably on the
sofa. But thinking the drawing-room a little chilly, Mrs. Carey brought
him a rug from the hall; she put it over his legs and tucked it round his
feet. She drew the blinds so that the light should not offend his eyes,
and since he had closed them already went out of the room on tiptoe. The
Vicar was at peace with himself today, and in ten minutes he was asleep.
He snored softly.

It was the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and the collect began with the
words: O God, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the
works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of Eternal
life. Philip read it through. He could make no sense of it. He began
saying the words aloud to himself, but many of them were unknown to him,
and the construction of the sentence was strange. He could not get more
than two lines in his head. And his attention was constantly wandering:
there were fruit trees trained on the walls of the vicarage, and a long
twig beat now and then against the windowpane; sheep grazed stolidly in
the field beyond the garden. It seemed as though there were knots inside
his brain. Then panic seized him that he would not know the words by
tea-time, and he kept on whispering them to himself quickly; he did not
try to understand, but merely to get them parrot-like into his memory.

Mrs. Carey could not sleep that afternoon, and by four o'clock she was so
wide awake that she came downstairs. She thought she would hear Philip his
collect so that he should make no mistakes when he said it to his uncle.
His uncle then would be pleased; he would see that the boy's heart was in
the right place. But when Mrs. Carey came to the dining-room and was about
to go in, she heard a sound that made her stop suddenly. Her heart gave a
little jump. She turned away and quietly slipped out of the front-door.
She walked round the house till she came to the dining-room window and
then cautiously looked in. Philip was still sitting on the chair she had
put him in, but his head was on the table buried in his arms, and he was
sobbing desperately. She saw the convulsive movement of his shoulders.
Mrs. Carey was frightened. A thing that had always struck her about the
child was that he seemed so collected. She had never seen him cry. And now
she realised that his calmness was some instinctive shame of showing his
fillings: he hid himself to weep.

Without thinking that her husband disliked being wakened suddenly, she
burst into the drawing-room.

"William, William," she said. "The boy's crying as though his heart would
break."

Mr. Carey sat up and disentangled himself from the rug about his legs.

"What's he got to cry about?"

"I don't know.... Oh, William, we can't let the boy be unhappy. D'you
think it's our fault? If we'd had children we'd have known what to do."

Mr. Carey looked at her in perplexity. He felt extraordinarily helpless.

"He can't be crying because I gave him the collect to learn. It's not more
than ten lines."

"Don't you think I might take him some picture books to look at, William?
There are some of the Holy Land. There couldn't be anything wrong in
that."

"Very well, I don't mind."

Mrs. Carey went into the study. To collect books was Mr. Carey's only
passion, and he never went into Tercanbury without spending an hour or two
in the second-hand shop; he always brought back four or five musty
volumes. He never read them, for he had long lost the habit of reading,
but he liked to turn the pages, look at the illustrations if they were
illustrated, and mend the bindings. He welcomed wet days because on them
he could stay at home without pangs of conscience and spend the afternoon
with white of egg and a glue-pot, patching up the Russia leather of some
battered quarto. He had many volumes of old travels, with steel
engravings, and Mrs. Carey quickly found two which described Palestine.
She coughed elaborately at the door so that Philip should have time to
compose himself, she felt that he would be humiliated if she came upon him
in the midst of his tears, then she rattled the door handle. When she went
in Philip was poring over the prayer-book, hiding his eyes with his hands
so that she might not see he had been crying.

"Do you know the collect yet?" she said.

He did not answer for a moment, and she felt that he did not trust his
voice. She was oddly embarrassed.

"I can't learn it by heart," he said at last, with a gasp.

"Oh, well, never mind," she said. "You needn't. I've got some picture
books for you to look at. Come and sit on my lap, and we'll look at them
together."

Philip slipped off his chair and limped over to her. He looked down so
that she should not see his eyes. She put her arms round him.

"Look," she said, "that's the place where our blessed Lord was born."

She showed him an Eastern town with flat roofs and cupolas and minarets.
In the foreground was a group of palm-trees, and under them were resting
two Arabs and some camels. Philip passed his hand over the picture as if
he wanted to feel the houses and the loose habiliments of the nomads.

"Read what it says," he asked.

Mrs. Carey in her even voice read the opposite page. It was a romantic
narrative of some Eastern traveller of the thirties, pompous maybe, but
fragrant with the emotion with which the East came to the generation that
followed Byron and Chateaubriand. In a moment or two Philip interrupted
her.

"I want to see another picture."

When Mary Ann came in and Mrs. Carey rose to help her lay the cloth.
Philip took the book in his hands and hurried through the illustrations.
It was with difficulty that his aunt induced him to put the book down for
tea. He had forgotten his horrible struggle to get the collect by heart;
he had forgotten his tears. Next day it was raining, and he asked for the
book again. Mrs. Carey gave it him joyfully. Talking over his future with
her husband she had found that both desired him to take orders, and this
eagerness for the book which described places hallowed by the presence of
Jesus seemed a good sign. It looked as though the boy's mind addressed
itself naturally to holy things. But in a day or two he asked for more
books. Mr. Carey took him into his study, showed him the shelf in which he
kept illustrated works, and chose for him one that dealt with Rome. Philip
took it greedily. The pictures led him to a new amusement. He began to
read the page before and the page after each engraving to find out what it
was about, and soon he lost all interest in his toys.

Then, when no one was near, he took out books for himself; and perhaps
because the first impression on his mind was made by an Eastern town, he
found his chief amusement in those which described the Levant. His heart
beat with excitement at the pictures of mosques and rich palaces; but
there was one, in a book on Constantinople, which peculiarly stirred his
imagination. It was called the Hall of the Thousand Columns. It was a
Byzantine cistern, which the popular fancy had endowed with fantastic
vastness; and the legend which he read told that a boat was always moored
at the entrance to tempt the unwary, but no traveller venturing into the
darkness had ever been seen again. And Philip wondered whether the boat
went on for ever through one pillared alley after another or came at last
to some strange mansion.

One day a good fortune befell him, for he hit upon Lane's translation of
The Thousand Nights and a Night. He was captured first by the
illustrations, and then he began to read, to start with, the stories that
dealt with magic, and then the others; and those he liked he read again
and again. He could think of nothing else. He forgot the life about him.
He had to be called two or three times before he would come to his dinner.
Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of
reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge
from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating
for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day
a source of bitter disappointment. Presently he began to read other
things. His brain was precocious. His uncle and aunt, seeing that he
occupied himself and neither worried nor made a noise, ceased to trouble
themselves about him. Mr. Carey had so many books that he did not know
them, and as he read little he forgot the odd lots he had bought at one
time and another because they were cheap. Haphazard among the sermons and
homilies, the travels, the lives of the Saints, the Fathers, the histories
of the church, were old-fashioned novels; and these Philip at last
discovered. He chose them by their titles, and the first he read was The
Lancashire Witches, and then he read The Admirable Crichton, and then
many more. Whenever he started a book with two solitary travellers riding
along the brink of a desperate ravine he knew he was safe.

The summer was come now, and the gardener, an old sailor, made him a
hammock and fixed it up for him in the branches of a weeping willow. And
here for long hours he lay, hidden from anyone who might come to the
vicarage, reading, reading passionately. Time passed and it was July;
August came: on Sundays the church was crowded with strangers, and the
collection at the offertory often amounted to two pounds. Neither the
Vicar nor Mrs. Carey went out of the garden much during this period; for
they disliked strange faces, and they looked upon the visitors from London
with aversion. The house opposite was taken for six weeks by a gentleman
who had two little boys, and he sent in to ask if Philip would like to go
and play with them; but Mrs. Carey returned a polite refusal. She was
afraid that Philip would be corrupted by little boys from London. He was
going to be a clergyman, and it was necessary that he should be preserved
from contamination. She liked to see in him an infant Samuel.



X


The Careys made up their minds to send Philip to King's School at
Tercanbury. The neighbouring clergy sent their sons there. It was united
by long tradition to the Cathedral: its headmaster was an honorary Canon,
and a past headmaster was the Archdeacon. Boys were encouraged there to
aspire to Holy Orders, and the education was such as might prepare an
honest lad to spend his life in God's service. A preparatory school was
attached to it, and to this it was arranged that Philip should go. Mr.
Carey took him into Tercanbury one Thursday afternoon towards the end of
September. All day Philip had been excited and rather frightened. He knew
little of school life but what he had read in the stories of The Boy's
Own Paper. He had also read Eric, or Little by Little.

When they got out of the train at Tercanbury, Philip felt sick with
apprehension, and during the drive in to the town sat pale and silent. The
high brick wall in front of the school gave it the look of a prison. There
was a little door in it, which opened on their ringing; and a clumsy,
untidy man came out and fetched Philip's tin trunk and his play-box. They
were shown into the drawing-room; it was filled with massive, ugly
furniture, and the chairs of the suite were placed round the walls with a
forbidding rigidity. They waited for the headmaster.

"What's Mr. Watson like?" asked Philip, after a while.

"You'll see for yourself."

There was another pause. Mr. Carey wondered why the headmaster did not
come. Presently Philip made an effort and spoke again.

"Tell him I've got a club-foot," he said.

Before Mr. Carey could speak the door burst open and Mr. Watson swept into
the room. To Philip he seemed gigantic. He was a man of over six feet
high, and broad, with enormous hands and a great red beard; he talked
loudly in a jovial manner; but his aggressive cheerfulness struck terror
in Philip's heart. He shook hands with Mr. Carey, and then took Philip's
small hand in his.

"Well, young fellow, are you glad to come to school?" he shouted.

Philip reddened and found no word to answer.

"How old are you?"

"Nine," said Philip.

"You must say sir," said his uncle.

"I expect you've got a good lot to learn," the headmaster bellowed
cheerily.

To give the boy confidence he began to tickle him with rough fingers.
Philip, feeling shy and uncomfortable, squirmed under his touch.

"I've put him in the small dormitory for the present.... You'll like that,
won't you?" he added to Philip. "Only eight of you in there. You won't
feel so strange."

Then the door opened, and Mrs. Watson came in. She was a dark woman with
black hair, neatly parted in the middle. She had curiously thick lips and
a small round nose. Her eyes were large and black. There was a singular
coldness in her appearance. She seldom spoke and smiled more seldom still.
Her husband introduced Mr. Carey to her, and then gave Philip a friendly
push towards her.

"This is a new boy, Helen, His name's Carey."

Without a word she shook hands with Philip and then sat down, not
speaking, while the headmaster asked Mr. Carey how much Philip knew and
what books he had been working with. The Vicar of Blackstable was a little
embarrassed by Mr. Watson's boisterous heartiness, and in a moment or two
got up.

"I think I'd better leave Philip with you now."

"That's all right," said Mr. Watson. "He'll be safe with me. He'll get on
like a house on fire. Won't you, young fellow?"

Without waiting for an answer from Philip the big man burst into a great
bellow of laughter. Mr. Carey kissed Philip on the forehead and went away.

"Come along, young fellow," shouted Mr. Watson. "I'll show you the
school-room."

He swept out of the drawing-room with giant strides, and Philip hurriedly
limped behind him. He was taken into a long, bare room with two tables
that ran along its whole length; on each side of them were wooden forms.

"Nobody much here yet," said Mr. Watson. "I'll just show you the
playground, and then I'll leave you to shift for yourself."

Mr. Watson led the way. Philip found himself in a large play-ground with
high brick walls on three sides of it. On the fourth side was an iron
railing through which you saw a vast lawn and beyond this some of the
buildings of King's School. One small boy was wandering disconsolately,
kicking up the gravel as he walked.

"Hulloa, Venning," shouted Mr. Watson. "When did you turn up?"

The small boy came forward and shook hands.

"Here's a new boy. He's older and bigger than you, so don't you bully
him."

The headmaster glared amicably at the two children, filling them with fear
by the roar of his voice, and then with a guffaw left them.

"What's your name?"

"Carey."

"What's your father?"

"He's dead."

"Oh! Does your mother wash?"

"My mother's dead, too."

Philip thought this answer would cause the boy a certain awkwardness, but
Venning was not to be turned from his facetiousness for so little.

"Well, did she wash?" he went on.

"Yes," said Philip indignantly.

"She was a washerwoman then?"

"No, she wasn't."

"Then she didn't wash."

The little boy crowed with delight at the success of his dialectic. Then
he caught sight of Philip's feet.

"What's the matter with your foot?"

Philip instinctively tried to withdraw it from sight. He hid it behind the
one which was whole.

"I've got a club-foot," he answered.

"How did you get it?"

"I've always had it."

"Let's have a look."

"No."

"Don't then."

The little boy accompanied the words with a sharp kick on Philip's shin,
which Philip did not expect and thus could not guard against. The pain was
so great that it made him gasp, but greater than the pain was the
surprise. He did not know why Venning kicked him. He had not the presence
of mind to give him a black eye. Besides, the boy was smaller than he, and
he had read in The Boy's Own Paper that it was a mean thing to hit
anyone smaller than yourself. While Philip was nursing his shin a third
boy appeared, and his tormentor left him. In a little while he noticed
that the pair were talking about him, and he felt they were looking at his
feet. He grew hot and uncomfortable.

But others arrived, a dozen together, and then more, and they began to
talk about their doings during the holidays, where they had been, and what
wonderful cricket they had played. A few new boys appeared, and with these
presently Philip found himself talking. He was shy and nervous. He was
anxious to make himself pleasant, but he could not think of anything to
say. He was asked a great many questions and answered them all quite
willingly. One boy asked him whether he could play cricket.

"No," answered Philip. "I've got a club-foot."

The boy looked down quickly and reddened. Philip saw that he felt he had
asked an unseemly question. He was too shy to apologise and looked at
Philip awkwardly.



XI


Next morning when the clanging of a bell awoke Philip he looked round his
cubicle in astonishment. Then a voice sang out, and he remembered where he
was.

"Are you awake, Singer?"

The partitions of the cubicle were of polished pitch-pine, and there was
a green curtain in front. In those days there was little thought of
ventilation, and the windows were closed except when the dormitory was
aired in the morning.

Philip got up and knelt down to say his prayers. It was a cold morning,
and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his
prayers were more acceptable to God if he said them in his nightshirt than
if he waited till he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for he was
beginning to realise that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the
discomfort of his worshippers. Then he washed. There were two baths for
the fifty boarders, and each boy had a bath once a week. The rest of his
washing was done in a small basin on a wash-stand, which with the bed and
a chair, made up the furniture of each cubicle. The boys chatted gaily
while they dressed. Philip was all ears. Then another bell sounded, and
they ran downstairs. They took their seats on the forms on each side of
the two long tables in the school-room; and Mr. Watson, followed by his
wife and the servants, came in and sat down. Mr. Watson read prayers in an
impressive manner, and the supplications thundered out in his loud voice
as though they were threats personally addressed to each boy. Philip
listened with anxiety. Then Mr. Watson read a chapter from the Bible, and
the servants trooped out. In a moment the untidy youth brought in two
large pots of tea and on a second journey immense dishes of bread and
butter.

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