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Of Human Bondage

by W. Somerset Maugham · English · Gutenberg #351 · 1,429,208 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Of Human Bondage

Author: W. Somerset Maugham


        
Release date: October 1, 1995 [eBook #351]
                Most recently updated: December 5, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/351


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF HUMAN BONDAGE ***




Of Human Bondage

by W. Somerset Maugham




I


The day broke gray and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a
rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a
room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced
mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and
went to the child’s bed.

“Wake up, Philip,” she said.

She pulled down the bed-clothes, took him in her arms, and carried him
downstairs. He was only half awake.

“Your mother wants you,” she said.

She opened the door of a room on the floor below and took the child
over to a bed in which a woman was lying. It was his mother. She
stretched out her arms, and the child nestled by her side. He did not
ask why he had been awakened. The woman kissed his eyes, and with thin,
small hands felt the warm body through his white flannel nightgown. She
pressed him closer to herself.

“Are you sleepy, darling?” she said.

Her voice was so weak that it seemed to come already from a great
distance. The child did not answer, but smiled comfortably. He was very
happy in the large, warm bed, with those soft arms about him. He tried
to make himself smaller still as he cuddled up against his mother, and
he kissed her sleepily. In a moment he closed his eyes and was fast
asleep. The doctor came forwards and stood by the bed-side.

“Oh, don’t take him away yet,” she moaned.

The doctor, without answering, looked at her gravely. Knowing she would
not be allowed to keep the child much longer, the woman kissed him
again; and she passed her hand down his body till she came to his feet;
she held the right foot in her hand and felt the five small toes; and
then slowly passed her hand over the left one. She gave a sob.

“What’s the matter?” said the doctor. “You’re tired.”

She shook her head, unable to speak, and the tears rolled down her
cheeks. The doctor bent down.

“Let me take him.”

She was too weak to resist his wish, and she gave the child up. The
doctor handed him back to his nurse.

“You’d better put him back in his own bed.”

“Very well, sir.” The little boy, still sleeping, was taken away. His
mother sobbed now broken-heartedly.

“What will happen to him, poor child?”

The monthly nurse tried to quiet her, and presently, from exhaustion,
the crying ceased. The doctor walked to a table on the other side of
the room, upon which, under a towel, lay the body of a still-born
child. He lifted the towel and looked. He was hidden from the bed by a
screen, but the woman guessed what he was doing.

“Was it a girl or a boy?” she whispered to the nurse.

“Another boy.”

The woman did not answer. In a moment the child’s nurse came back. She
approached the bed.

“Master Philip never woke up,” she said. There was a pause. Then the
doctor felt his patient’s pulse once more.

“I don’t think there’s anything I can do just now,” he said. “I’ll call
again after breakfast.”

“I’ll show you out, sir,” said the child’s nurse.

They walked downstairs in silence. In the hall the doctor stopped.

“You’ve sent for Mrs. Carey’s brother-in-law, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“D’you know at what time he’ll be here?”

“No, sir, I’m expecting a telegram.”

“What about the little boy? I should think he’d be better out of the
way.”

“Miss Watkin said she’d take him, sir.”

“Who’s she?”

“She’s his godmother, sir. D’you think Mrs. Carey will get over it,
sir?”

The doctor shook his head.




II


It was a week later. Philip was sitting on the floor in the
drawing-room at Miss Watkin’s house in Onslow gardens. He was an only
child and used to amusing himself. The room was filled with massive
furniture, and on each of the sofas were three big cushions. There was
a cushion too in each arm-chair. All these he had taken and, with the
help of the gilt rout chairs, light and easy to move, had made an
elaborate cave in which he could hide himself from the Red Indians who
were lurking behind the curtains. He put his ear to the floor and
listened to the herd of buffaloes that raced across the prairie.
Presently, hearing the door open, he held his breath so that he might
not be discovered; but a violent hand pulled away a chair and the
cushions fell down.

“You naughty boy, Miss Watkin WILL be cross with you.”

“Hulloa, Emma!” he said.

The nurse bent down and kissed him, then began to shake out the
cushions, and put them back in their places.

“Am I to come home?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ve come to fetch you.”

“You’ve got a new dress on.”

It was in eighteen-eighty-five, and she wore a bustle. Her gown was of
black velvet, with tight sleeves and sloping shoulders, and the skirt
had three large flounces. She wore a black bonnet with velvet strings.
She hesitated. The question she had expected did not come, and so she
could not give the answer she had prepared.

“Aren’t you going to ask how your mamma is?” she said at length.

“Oh, I forgot. How is mamma?”

Now she was ready.

“Your mamma is quite well and happy.”

“Oh, I am glad.”

“Your mamma’s gone away. You won’t ever see her any more.” Philip did
not know what she meant.

“Why not?”

“Your mamma’s in heaven.”

She began to cry, and Philip, though he did not quite understand, cried
too. Emma was a tall, big-boned woman, with fair hair and large
features. She came from Devonshire and, notwithstanding her many years
of service in London, had never lost the breadth of her accent. Her
tears increased her emotion, and she pressed the little boy to her
heart. She felt vaguely the pity of that child deprived of the only
love in the world that is quite unselfish. It seemed dreadful that he
must be handed over to strangers. But in a little while she pulled
herself together.

“Your Uncle William is waiting in to see you,” she said. “Go and say
good-bye to Miss Watkin, and we’ll go home.”

“I don’t want to say good-bye,” he answered, instinctively anxious to
hide his tears.

“Very well, run upstairs and get your hat.”

He fetched it, and when he came down Emma was waiting for him in the
hall. He heard the sound of voices in the study behind the dining-room.
He paused. He knew that Miss Watkin and her sister were talking to
friends, and it seemed to him—he was nine years old—that if he went in
they would be sorry for him.

“I think I’ll go and say good-bye to Miss Watkin.”

“I think you’d better,” said Emma.

“Go in and tell them I’m coming,” he said.

He wished to make the most of his opportunity. Emma knocked at the door
and walked in. He heard her speak.

“Master Philip wants to say good-bye to you, miss.”

There was a sudden hush of the conversation, and Philip limped in.
Henrietta Watkin was a stout woman, with a red face and dyed hair. In
those days to dye the hair excited comment, and Philip had heard much
gossip at home when his godmother’s changed colour. She lived with an
elder sister, who had resigned herself contentedly to old age. Two
ladies, whom Philip did not know, were calling, and they looked at him
curiously.

“My poor child,” said Miss Watkin, opening her arms.

She began to cry. Philip understood now why she had not been in to
luncheon and why she wore a black dress. She could not speak.

“I’ve got to go home,” said Philip, at last.

He disengaged himself from Miss Watkin’s arms, and she kissed him
again. Then he went to her sister and bade her good-bye too. One of the
strange ladies asked if she might kiss him, and he gravely gave her
permission. Though crying, he keenly enjoyed the sensation he was
causing; he would have been glad to stay a little longer to be made
much of, but felt they expected him to go, so he said that Emma was
waiting for him. He went out of the room. Emma had gone downstairs to
speak with a friend in the basement, and he waited for her on the
landing. He heard Henrietta Watkin’s voice.

“His mother was my greatest friend. I can’t bear to think that she’s
dead.”

“You oughtn’t to have gone to the funeral, Henrietta,” said her sister.
“I knew it would upset you.”

Then one of the strangers spoke.

“Poor little boy, it’s dreadful to think of him quite alone in the
world. I see he limps.”

“Yes, he’s got a club-foot. It was such a grief to his mother.”

Then Emma came back. They called a hansom, and she told the driver
where to go.




III


When they reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in—it was in a dreary,
respectable street between Notting Hill Gate and High Street,
Kensington—Emma led Philip into the drawing-room. His uncle was writing
letters of thanks for the wreaths which had been sent. One of them,
which had arrived too late for the funeral, lay in its cardboard box on
the hall-table.

“Here’s Master Philip,” said Emma.

Mr. Carey stood up slowly and shook hands with the little boy. Then on
second thoughts he bent down and kissed his forehead. He was a man of
somewhat less than average height, inclined to corpulence, with his
hair, worn long, arranged over the scalp so as to conceal his baldness.
He was clean-shaven. His features were regular, and it was possible to
imagine that in his youth he had been good-looking. On his watch-chain
he wore a gold cross.

“You’re going to live with me now, Philip,” said Mr. Carey. “Shall you
like that?”

Two years before Philip had been sent down to stay at the vicarage
after an attack of chicken-pox; but there remained with him a
recollection of an attic and a large garden rather than of his uncle
and aunt.

“Yes.”

“You must look upon me and your Aunt Louisa as your father and mother.”

The child’s mouth trembled a little, he reddened, but did not answer.

“Your dear mother left you in my charge.”

Mr. Carey had no great ease in expressing himself. When the news came
that his sister-in-law was dying, he set off at once for London, but on
the way thought of nothing but the disturbance in his life that would
be caused if her death forced him to undertake the care of her son. He
was well over fifty, and his wife, to whom he had been married for
thirty years, was childless; he did not look forward with any pleasure
to the presence of a small boy who might be noisy and rough. He had
never much liked his sister-in-law.

“I’m going to take you down to Blackstable tomorrow,” he said.

“With Emma?”

The child put his hand in hers, and she pressed it.

“I’m afraid Emma must go away,” said Mr. Carey.

“But I want Emma to come with me.”

Philip began to cry, and the nurse could not help crying too. Mr. Carey
looked at them helplessly.

“I think you’d better leave me alone with Master Philip for a moment.”

“Very good, sir.”

Though Philip clung to her, she released herself gently. Mr. Carey took
the boy on his knee and put his arm round him.

“You mustn’t cry,” he said. “You’re too old to have a nurse now. We
must see about sending you to school.”

“I want Emma to come with me,” the child repeated.

“It costs too much money, Philip. Your father didn’t leave very much,
and I don’t know what’s become of it. You must look at every penny you
spend.”

Mr. Carey had called the day before on the family solicitor. Philip’s
father was a surgeon in good practice, and his hospital appointments
suggested an established position; so that it was a surprise on his
sudden death from blood-poisoning to find that he had left his widow
little more than his life insurance and what could be got for the lease
of their house in Bruton Street. This was six months ago; and Mrs.
Carey, already in delicate health, finding herself with child, had lost
her head and accepted for the lease the first offer that was made. She
stored her furniture, and, at a rent which the parson thought
outrageous, took a furnished house for a year, so that she might suffer
from no inconvenience till her child was born. But she had never been
used to the management of money, and was unable to adapt her
expenditure to her altered circumstances. The little she had slipped
through her fingers in one way and another, so that now, when all
expenses were paid, not much more than two thousand pounds remained to
support the boy till he was able to earn his own living. It was
impossible to explain all this to Philip and he was sobbing still.

“You’d better go to Emma,” Mr. Carey said, feeling that she could
console the child better than anyone.

Without a word Philip slipped off his uncle’s knee, but Mr. Carey
stopped him.

“We must go tomorrow, because on Saturday I’ve got to prepare my
sermon, and you must tell Emma to get your things ready today. You can
bring all your toys. And if you want anything to remember your father
and mother by you can take one thing for each of them. Everything else
is going to be sold.”

The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was unused to work, and he
turned to his correspondence with resentment. On one side of the desk
was a bundle of bills, and these filled him with irritation. One
especially seemed preposterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey’s death
Emma had ordered from the florist masses of white flowers for the room
in which the dead woman lay. It was sheer waste of money. Emma took far
too much upon herself. Even if there had been no financial necessity,
he would have dismissed her.

But Philip went to her, and hid his face in her bosom, and wept as
though his heart would break. And she, feeling that he was almost her
own son—she had taken him when he was a month old—consoled him with
soft words. She promised that she would come and see him sometimes, and
that she would never forget him; and she told him about the country he
was going to and about her own home in Devonshire—her father kept a
turnpike on the high-road that led to Exeter, and there were pigs in
the sty, and there was a cow, and the cow had just had a calf—till
Philip forgot his tears and grew excited at the thought of his
approaching journey. Presently she put him down, for there was much to
be done, and he helped her to lay out his clothes on the bed. She sent
him into the nursery to gather up his toys, and in a little while he
was playing happily.

But at last he grew tired of being alone and went back to the bed-room,
in which Emma was now putting his things into a big tin box; he
remembered then that his uncle had said he might take something to
remember his father and mother by. He told Emma and asked her what he
should take.

“You’d better go into the drawing-room and see what you fancy.”

“Uncle William’s there.”

“Never mind that. They’re your own things now.”

Philip went downstairs slowly and found the door open. Mr. Carey had
left the room. Philip walked slowly round. They had been in the house
so short a time that there was little in it that had a particular
interest to him. It was a stranger’s room, and Philip saw nothing that
struck his fancy. But he knew which were his mother’s things and which
belonged to the landlord, and presently fixed on a little clock that he
had once heard his mother say she liked. With this he walked again
rather disconsolately upstairs. Outside the door of his mother’s
bed-room he stopped and listened. Though no one had told him not to go
in, he had a feeling that it would be wrong to do so; he was a little
frightened, and his heart beat uncomfortably; but at the same time
something impelled him to turn the handle. He turned it very gently, as
if to prevent anyone within from hearing, and then slowly pushed the
door open. He stood on the threshold for a moment before he had the
courage to enter. He was not frightened now, but it seemed strange. He
closed the door behind him. The blinds were drawn, and the room, in the
cold light of a January afternoon, was dark. On the dressing-table were
Mrs. Carey’s brushes and the hand mirror. In a little tray were
hairpins. There was a photograph of himself on the chimney-piece and
one of his father. He had often been in the room when his mother was
not in it, but now it seemed different. There was something curious in
the look of the chairs. The bed was made as though someone were going
to sleep in it that night, and in a case on the pillow was a
night-dress.

Philip opened a large cupboard filled with dresses and, stepping in,
took as many of them as he could in his arms and buried his face in
them. They smelt of the scent his mother used. Then he pulled open the
drawers, filled with his mother’s things, and looked at them: there
were lavender bags among the linen, and their scent was fresh and
pleasant. The strangeness of the room left it, and it seemed to him
that his mother had just gone out for a walk. She would be in presently
and would come upstairs to have nursery tea with him. And he seemed to
feel her kiss on his lips.

It was not true that he would never see her again. It was not true
simply because it was impossible. He climbed up on the bed and put his
head on the pillow. He lay there quite still.




IV


Philip parted from Emma with tears, but the journey to Blackstable
amused him, and, when they arrived, he was resigned and cheerful.
Blackstable was sixty miles from London. Giving their luggage to a
porter, Mr. Carey set out to walk with Philip to the vicarage; it took
them little more than five minutes, and, when they reached it, Philip
suddenly remembered the gate. It was red and five-barred: it swung both
ways on easy hinges; and it was possible, though forbidden, to swing
backwards and forwards on it. They walked through the garden to the
front-door. This was only used by visitors and on Sundays, and on
special occasions, as when the Vicar went up to London or came back.
The traffic of the house took place through a side-door, and there was
a back door as well for the gardener and for beggars and tramps. It was
a fairly large house of yellow brick, with a red roof, built about five
and twenty years before in an ecclesiastical style. The front-door was
like a church porch, and the drawing-room windows were gothic.

Mrs. Carey, knowing by what train they were coming, waited in the
drawing-room and listened for the click of the gate. When she heard it
she went to the door.

“There’s Aunt Louisa,” said Mr. Carey, when he saw her. “Run and give
her a kiss.”

Philip started to run, awkwardly, trailing his club-foot, and then
stopped. Mrs. Carey was a little, shrivelled woman of the same age as
her husband, with a face extraordinarily filled with deep wrinkles, and
pale blue eyes. Her gray hair was arranged in ringlets according to the
fashion of her youth. She wore a black dress, and her only ornament was
a gold chain, from which hung a cross. She had a shy manner and a
gentle voice.

“Did you walk, William?” she said, almost reproachfully, as she kissed
her husband.

“I didn’t think of it,” he answered, with a glance at his nephew.

“It didn’t hurt you to walk, Philip, did it?” she asked the child.

“No. I always walk.”

He was a little surprised at their conversation. Aunt Louisa told him
to come in, and they entered the hall. It was paved with red and yellow
tiles, on which alternately were a Greek Cross and the Lamb of God. An
imposing staircase led out of the hall. It was of polished pine, with a
peculiar smell, and had been put in because fortunately, when the
church was reseated, enough wood remained over. The balusters were
decorated with emblems of the Four Evangelists.

“I’ve had the stove lighted as I thought you’d be cold after your
journey,” said Mrs. Carey.

It was a large black stove that stood in the hall and was only lighted
if the weather was very bad and the Vicar had a cold. It was not
lighted if Mrs. Carey had a cold. Coal was expensive. Besides, Mary
Ann, the maid, didn’t like fires all over the place. If they wanted all
them fires they must keep a second girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs.
Carey lived in the dining-room so that one fire should do, and in the
summer they could not get out of the habit, so the drawing-room was
used only by Mr. Carey on Sunday afternoons for his nap. But every
Saturday he had a fire in the study so that he could write his sermon.

Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into a tiny bed-room
that looked out on the drive. Immediately in front of the window was a
large tree, which Philip remembered now because the branches were so
low that it was possible to climb quite high up it.

“A small room for a small boy,” said Mrs. Carey. “You won’t be
frightened at sleeping alone?”

“Oh, no.”

On his first visit to the vicarage he had come with his nurse, and Mrs.
Carey had had little to do with him. She looked at him now with some
uncertainty.

“Can you wash your own hands, or shall I wash them for you?”

“I can wash myself,” he answered firmly.

“Well, I shall look at them when you come down to tea,” said Mrs.
Carey.

She knew nothing about children. After it was settled that Philip
should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she
should treat him; she was anxious to do her duty; but now he was there
she found herself just as shy of him as he was of her. She hoped he
would not be noisy and rough, because her husband did not like rough
and noisy boys. Mrs. Carey made an excuse to leave Philip alone, but in
a moment came back and knocked at the door; she asked him, without
coming in, if he could pour out the water himself. Then she went
downstairs and rang the bell for tea.

The dining-room, large and well-proportioned, had windows on two sides
of it, with heavy curtains of red rep; there was a big table in the
middle; and at one end an imposing mahogany sideboard with a
looking-glass in it. In one corner stood a harmonium. On each side of
the fireplace were chairs covered in stamped leather, each with an
antimacassar; one had arms and was called the husband, and the other
had none and was called the wife. Mrs. Carey never sat in the
arm-chair: she said she preferred a chair that was not too comfortable;
there was always a lot to do, and if her chair had had arms she might
not be so ready to leave it.

Mr. Carey was making up the fire when Philip came in, and he pointed
out to his nephew that there were two pokers. One was large and bright
and polished and unused, and was called the Vicar; and the other, which
was much smaller and had evidently passed through many fires, was
called the Curate.

“What are we waiting for?” said Mr. Carey.

“I told Mary Ann to make you an egg. I thought you’d be hungry after
your journey.”

Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Blackstable very tiring.
She seldom travelled herself, for the living was only three hundred a
year, and, when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money
for two, he went by himself. He was very fond of Church Congresses and
usually managed to go up to London once a year; and once he had been to
Paris for the exhibition, and two or three times to Switzerland. Mary
Ann brought in the egg, and they sat down. The chair was much too low
for Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey nor his wife knew what
to do.

“I’ll put some books under him,” said Mary Ann.

She took from the top of the harmonium the large Bible and the
prayer-book from which the Vicar was accustomed to read prayers, and
put them on Philip’s chair.

“Oh, William, he can’t sit on the Bible,” said Mrs. Carey, in a shocked
tone. “Couldn’t you get him some books out of the study?”

Mr. Carey considered the question for an instant.

“I don’t think it matters this once if you put the prayer-book on the
top, Mary Ann,” he said. “The book of Common Prayer is the composition
of men like ourselves. It has no claim to divine authorship.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, William,” said Aunt Louisa.

Philip perched himself on the books, and the Vicar, having said grace,
cut the top off his egg.

“There,” he said, handing it to Philip, “you can eat my top if you
like.”

Philip would have liked an egg to himself, but he was not offered one,
so took what he could.

“How have the chickens been laying since I went away?” asked the Vicar.

“Oh, they’ve been dreadful, only one or two a day.”

“How did you like that top, Philip?” asked his uncle.

“Very much, thank you.”

“You shall have another one on Sunday afternoon.”

Mr. Carey always had a boiled egg at tea on Sunday, so that he might be
fortified for the evening service.




V


Philip came gradually to know the people he was to live with, and by
fragments of conversation, some of it not meant for his ears, learned a
good deal both about himself and about his dead parents. Philip’s
father had been much younger than the Vicar of Blackstable. After a
brilliant career at St. Luke’s Hospital he was put on the staff, and
presently began to earn money in considerable sums. He spent it freely.
When the parson set about restoring his church and asked his brother
for a subscription, he was surprised by receiving a couple of hundred
pounds: Mr. Carey, thrifty by inclination and economical by necessity,
accepted it with mingled feelings; he was envious of his brother
because he could afford to give so much, pleased for the sake of his
church, and vaguely irritated by a generosity which seemed almost
ostentatious. Then Henry Carey married a patient, a beautiful girl but
penniless, an orphan with no near relations, but of good family; and
there was an array of fine friends at the wedding. The parson, on his
visits to her when he came to London, held himself with reserve. He
felt shy with her and in his heart he resented her great beauty: she
dressed more magnificently than became the wife of a hardworking
surgeon; and the charming furniture of her house, the flowers among
which she lived even in winter, suggested an extravagance which he
deplored. He heard her talk of entertainments she was going to; and, as
he told his wife on getting home again, it was impossible to accept
hospitality without making some return. He had seen grapes in the
dining-room that must have cost at least eight shillings a pound; and
at luncheon he had been given asparagus two months before it was ready
in the vicarage garden. Now all he had anticipated was come to pass:
the Vicar felt the satisfaction of the prophet who saw fire and
brimstone consume the city which would not mend its way to his warning.
Poor Philip was practically penniless, and what was the good of his
mother’s fine friends now? He heard that his father’s extravagance was
really criminal, and it was a mercy that Providence had seen fit to
take his dear mother to itself: she had no more idea of money than a
child.

When Philip had been a week at Blackstable an incident happened which
seemed to irritate his uncle very much. One morning he found on the
breakfast table a small packet which had been sent on by post from the
late Mrs. Carey’s house in London. It was addressed to her. When the
parson opened it he found a dozen photographs of Mrs. Carey. They
showed the head and shoulders only, and her hair was more plainly done
than usual, low on the forehead, which gave her an unusual look; the
face was thin and worn, but no illness could impair the beauty of her
features. There was in the large dark eyes a sadness which Philip did
not remember. The first sight of the dead woman gave Mr. Carey a little
shock, but this was quickly followed by perplexity. The photographs
seemed quite recent, and he could not imagine who had ordered them.

“D’you know anything about these, Philip?” he asked.

“I remember mamma said she’d been taken,” he answered. “Miss Watkin
scolded her…. She said: I wanted the boy to have something to remember
me by when he grows up.”

Mr. Carey looked at Philip for an instant. The child spoke in a clear
treble. He recalled the words, but they meant nothing to him.

“You’d better take one of the photographs and keep it in your room,”
said Mr. Carey. “I’ll put the others away.”

He sent one to Miss Watkin, and she wrote and explained how they came
to be taken.

One day Mrs. Carey was lying in bed, but she was feeling a little
better than usual, and the doctor in the morning had seemed hopeful;
Emma had taken the child out, and the maids were downstairs in the
basement: suddenly Mrs. Carey felt desperately alone in the world. A
great fear seized her that she would not recover from the confinement
which she was expecting in a fortnight. Her son was nine years old. How
could he be expected to remember her? She could not bear to think that
he would grow up and forget, forget her utterly; and she had loved him
so passionately, because he was weakly and deformed, and because he was
her child. She had no photographs of herself taken since her marriage,
and that was ten years before. She wanted her son to know what she
looked like at the end. He could not forget her then, not forget
utterly. She knew that if she called her maid and told her she wanted
to get up, the maid would prevent her, and perhaps send for the doctor,
and she had not the strength now to struggle or argue. She got out of
bed and began to dress herself. She had been on her back so long that
her legs gave way beneath her, and then the soles of her feet tingled
so that she could hardly bear to put them to the ground. But she went
on. She was unused to doing her own hair and, when she raised her arms
and began to brush it, she felt faint. She could never do it as her
maid did. It was beautiful hair, very fine, and of a deep rich gold.
Her eyebrows were straight and dark. She put on a black skirt, but
chose the bodice of the evening dress which she liked best: it was of a
white damask which was fashionable in those days. She looked at herself
in the glass. Her face was very pale, but her skin was clear: she had
never had much colour, and this had always made the redness of her
beautiful mouth emphatic. She could not restrain a sob. But she could
not afford to be sorry for herself; she was feeling already desperately
tired; and she put on the furs which Henry had given her the Christmas
before—she had been so proud of them and so happy then—and slipped
downstairs with beating heart. She got safely out of the house and
drove to a photographer. She paid for a dozen photographs. She was
obliged to ask for a glass of water in the middle of the sitting; and
the assistant, seeing she was ill, suggested that she should come
another day, but she insisted on staying till the end. At last it was
finished, and she drove back again to the dingy little house in
Kensington which she hated with all her heart. It was a horrible house
to die in.

She found the front door open, and when she drove up the maid and Emma
ran down the steps to help her. They had been frightened when they
found her room empty. At first they thought she must have gone to Miss
Watkin, and the cook was sent round. Miss Watkin came back with her and
was waiting anxiously in the drawing-room. She came downstairs now full
of anxiety and reproaches; but the exertion had been more than Mrs.
Carey was fit for, and when the occasion for firmness no longer existed
she gave way. She fell heavily into Emma’s arms and was carried
upstairs. She remained unconscious for a time that seemed incredibly
long to those that watched her, and the doctor, hurriedly sent for, did
not come. It was next day, when she was a little better, that Miss
Watkin got some explanation out of her. Philip was playing on the floor
of his mother’s bed-room, and neither of the ladies paid attention to
him. He only understood vaguely what they were talking about, and he
could not have said why those words remained in his memory.

“I wanted the boy to have something to remember me by when he grows
up.”

“I can’t make out why she ordered a dozen,” said Mr. Carey. “Two would
have done.”




VI


One day was very like another at the vicarage.

Soon after breakfast Mary Ann brought in The Times. Mr. Carey shared it
with two neighbours. He had it from ten till one, when the gardener
took it over to Mr. Ellis at the Limes, with whom it remained till
seven; then it was taken to Miss Brooks at the Manor House, who, since
she got it late, had the advantage of keeping it. In summer Mrs. Carey,
when she was making jam, often asked her for a copy to cover the pots
with. When the Vicar settled down to his paper his wife put on her
bonnet and went out to do the shopping. Philip accompanied her.
Blackstable was a fishing village. It consisted of a high street in
which were the shops, the bank, the doctor’s house, and the houses of
two or three coalship owners; round the little harbor were shabby
streets in which lived fishermen and poor people; but since they went
to chapel they were of no account. When Mrs. Carey passed the
dissenting ministers in the street she stepped over to the other side
to avoid meeting them, but if there was not time for this fixed her
eyes on the pavement. It was a scandal to which the Vicar had never
resigned himself that there were three chapels in the High Street: he
could not help feeling that the law should have stepped in to prevent
their erection. Shopping in Blackstable was not a simple matter; for
dissent, helped by the fact that the parish church was two miles from
the town, was very common; and it was necessary to deal only with
churchgoers; Mrs. Carey knew perfectly that the vicarage custom might
make all the difference to a tradesman’s faith. There were two butchers
who went to church, and they would not understand that the Vicar could
not deal with both of them at once; nor were they satisfied with his
simple plan of going for six months to one and for six months to the
other. The butcher who was not sending meat to the vicarage constantly
threatened not to come to church, and the Vicar was sometimes obliged
to make a threat: it was very wrong of him not to come to church, but
if he carried iniquity further and actually went to chapel, then of
course, excellent as his meat was, Mr. Carey would be forced to leave
him for ever. Mrs. Carey often stopped at the bank to deliver a message
to Josiah Graves, the manager, who was choir-master, treasurer, and
churchwarden. He was a tall, thin man with a sallow face and a long
nose; his hair was very white, and to Philip he seemed extremely old.
He kept the parish accounts, arranged the treats for the choir and the
schools; though there was no organ in the parish church, it was
generally considered (in Blackstable) that the choir he led was the
best in Kent; and when there was any ceremony, such as a visit from the
Bishop for confirmation or from the Rural Dean to preach at the Harvest
Thanksgiving, he made the necessary preparations. But he had no
hesitation in doing all manner of things without more than a
perfunctory consultation with the Vicar, and the Vicar, though always
ready to be saved trouble, much resented the churchwarden’s managing
ways. He really seemed to look upon himself as the most important
person in the parish. Mr. Carey constantly told his wife that if Josiah
Graves did not take care he would give him a good rap over the knuckles
one day; but Mrs. Carey advised him to bear with Josiah Graves: he
meant well, and it was not his fault if he was not quite a gentleman.
The Vicar, finding his comfort in the practice of a Christian virtue,
exercised forbearance; but he revenged himself by calling the
churchwarden Bismarck behind his back.

Once there had been a serious quarrel between the pair, and Mrs. Carey
still thought of that anxious time with dismay. The Conservative
candidate had announced his intention of addressing a meeting at
Blackstable; and Josiah Graves, having arranged that it should take
place in the Mission Hall, went to Mr. Carey and told him that he hoped
he would say a few words. It appeared that the candidate had asked
Josiah Graves to take the chair. This was more than Mr. Carey could put
up with. He had firm views upon the respect which was due to the cloth,
and it was ridiculous for a churchwarden to take the chair at a meeting
when the Vicar was there. He reminded Josiah Graves that parson meant
person, that is, the vicar was the person of the parish. Josiah Graves
answered that he was the first to recognise the dignity of the church,
but this was a matter of politics, and in his turn he reminded the
Vicar that their Blessed Saviour had enjoined upon them to render unto
Caesar the things that were Caesar’s. To this Mr. Carey replied that
the devil could quote scripture to his purpose, himself had sole
authority over the Mission Hall, and if he were not asked to be
chairman he would refuse the use of it for a political meeting. Josiah
Graves told Mr. Carey that he might do as he chose, and for his part he
thought the Wesleyan Chapel would be an equally suitable place. Then
Mr. Carey said that if Josiah Graves set foot in what was little better
than a heathen temple he was not fit to be churchwarden in a Christian
parish. Josiah Graves thereupon resigned all his offices, and that very
evening sent to the church for his cassock and surplice. His sister,
Miss Graves, who kept house for him, gave up her secretaryship of the
Maternity Club, which provided the pregnant poor with flannel, baby
linen, coals, and five shillings. Mr. Carey said he was at last master
in his own house. But soon he found that he was obliged to see to all
sorts of things that he knew nothing about; and Josiah Graves, after
the first moment of irritation, discovered that he had lost his chief
interest in life. Mrs. Carey and Miss Graves were much distressed by
the quarrel; they met after a discreet exchange of letters, and made up
their minds to put the matter right: they talked, one to her husband,
the other to her brother, from morning till night; and since they were
persuading these gentlemen to do what in their hearts they wanted,
after three weeks of anxiety a reconciliation was effected. It was to
both their interests, but they ascribed it to a common love for their
Redeemer. The meeting was held at the Mission Hall, and the doctor was
asked to be chairman. Mr. Carey and Josiah Graves both made speeches.

When Mrs. Carey had finished her business with the banker, she
generally went upstairs to have a little chat with his sister; and
while the ladies talked of parish matters, the curate or the new bonnet
of Mrs. Wilson—Mr. Wilson was the richest man in Blackstable, he was
thought to have at least five hundred a year, and he had married his
cook—Philip sat demurely in the stiff parlour, used only to receive
visitors, and busied himself with the restless movements of goldfish in
a bowl. The windows were never opened except to air the room for a few
minutes in the morning, and it had a stuffy smell which seemed to
Philip to have a mysterious connection with banking.

Then Mrs. Carey remembered that she had to go to the grocer, and they
continued their way. When the shopping was done they often went down a
side street of little houses, mostly of wood, in which fishermen dwelt
(and here and there a fisherman sat on his doorstep mending his nets,
and nets hung to dry upon the doors), till they came to a small beach,
shut in on each side by warehouses, but with a view of the sea. Mrs.
Carey stood for a few minutes and looked at it, it was turbid and
yellow, [and who knows what thoughts passed through her mind?] while
Philip searched for flat stones to play ducks and drakes. Then they
walked slowly back. They looked into the post office to get the right
time, nodded to Mrs. Wigram the doctor’s wife, who sat at her window
sewing, and so got home.

Dinner was at one o’clock; and on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday it
consisted of beef, roast, hashed, and minced, and on Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday of mutton. On Sunday they ate one of their own chickens.
In the afternoon Philip did his lessons, He was taught Latin and
mathematics by his uncle who knew neither, and French and the piano by
his aunt. Of French she was ignorant, but she knew the piano well
enough to accompany the old-fashioned songs she had sung for thirty
years. Uncle William used to tell Philip that when he was a curate his
wife had known twelve songs by heart, which she could sing at a
moment’s notice whenever she was asked. She often sang still when there
was a tea-party at the vicarage. There were few people whom the Careys
cared to ask there, and their parties consisted always of the curate,
Josiah Graves with his sister, Dr. Wigram and his wife. After tea Miss
Graves played one or two of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, and Mrs.
Carey sang When the Swallows Homeward Fly, or Trot, Trot, My Pony.

But the Careys did not give tea-parties often; the preparations upset
them, and when their guests were gone they felt themselves exhausted.
They preferred to have tea by themselves, and after tea they played
backgammon. Mrs. Carey arranged that her husband should win, because he
did not like losing. They had cold supper at eight. It was a scrappy
meal because Mary Ann resented getting anything ready after tea, and
Mrs. Carey helped to clear away. Mrs. Carey seldom ate more than bread
and butter, with a little stewed fruit to follow, but the Vicar had a
slice of cold meat. Immediately after supper Mrs. Carey rang the bell
for prayers, and then Philip went to bed. He rebelled against being
undressed by Mary Ann and after a while succeeded in establishing his
right to dress and undress himself. At nine o’clock Mary Ann brought in
the eggs and the plate. Mrs. Carey wrote the date on each egg and put
the number down in a book. She then took the plate-basket on her arm
and went upstairs. Mr. Carey continued to read one of his old books,
but as the clock struck ten he got up, put out the lamps, and followed
his wife to bed.

When Philip arrived there was some difficulty in deciding on which
evening he should have his bath. It was never easy to get plenty of hot
water, since the kitchen boiler did not work, and it was impossible for
two persons to have a bath on the same day. The only man who had a
bathroom in Blackstable was Mr. Wilson, and it was thought ostentatious
of him. Mary Ann had her bath in the kitchen on Monday night, because
she liked to begin the week clean. Uncle William could not have his on
Saturday, because he had a heavy day before him and he was always a
little tired after a bath, so he had it on Friday. Mrs. Carey had hers
on Thursday for the same reason. It looked as though Saturday were
naturally indicated for Philip, but Mary Ann said she couldn’t keep the
fire up on Saturday night: what with all the cooking on Sunday, having
to make pastry and she didn’t know what all, she did not feel up to
giving the boy his bath on Saturday night; and it was quite clear that
he could not bath himself. Mrs. Carey was shy about bathing a boy, and
of course the Vicar had his sermon. But the Vicar insisted that Philip
should be clean and sweet for the lord’s Day. Mary Ann said she would
rather go than be put upon—and after eighteen years she didn’t expect
to have more work given her, and they might show some consideration—and
Philip said he didn’t want anyone to bath him, but could very well bath
himself. This settled it. Mary Ann said she was quite sure he wouldn’t
bath himself properly, and rather than he should go dirty—and not
because he was going into the presence of the Lord, but because she
couldn’t abide a boy who wasn’t properly washed—she’d work herself to
the bone even if it was Saturday night.




VII


Sunday was a day crowded with incident. Mr. Carey was accustomed to say
that he was the only man in his parish who worked seven days a week.

The household got up half an hour earlier than usual. No lying abed for
a poor parson on the day of rest, Mr. Carey remarked as Mary Ann
knocked at the door punctually at eight. It took Mrs. Carey longer to
dress, and she got down to breakfast at nine, a little breathless, only
just before her husband. Mr. Carey’s boots stood in front of the fire
to warm. Prayers were longer than usual, and the breakfast more
substantial. After breakfast the Vicar cut thin slices of bread for the
communion, and Philip was privileged to cut off the crust. He was sent
to the study to fetch a marble paperweight, with which Mr. Carey
pressed the bread till it was thin and pulpy, and then it was cut into
small squares. The amount was regulated by the weather. On a very bad
day few people came to church, and on a very fine one, though many
came, few stayed for communion. There were most when it was dry enough
to make the walk to church pleasant, but not so fine that people wanted
to hurry away.

Then Mrs. Carey brought the communion plate out of the safe, which
stood in the pantry, and the Vicar polished it with a chamois leather.
At ten the fly drove up, and Mr. Carey got into his boots. Mrs. Carey
took several minutes to put on her bonnet, during which the Vicar, in a
voluminous cloak, stood in the hall with just such an expression on his
face as would have become an early Christian about to be led into the
arena. It was extraordinary that after thirty years of marriage his
wife could not be ready in time on Sunday morning. At last she came, in
black satin; the Vicar did not like colours in a clergyman’s wife at
any time, but on Sundays he was determined that she should wear black;
now and then, in conspiracy with Miss Graves, she ventured a white
feather or a pink rose in her bonnet, but the Vicar insisted that it
should disappear; he said he would not go to church with the scarlet
woman: Mrs. Carey sighed as a woman but obeyed as a wife. They were
about to step into the carriage when the Vicar remembered that no one
had given him his egg. They knew that he must have an egg for his
voice, there were two women in the house, and no one had the least
regard for his comfort. Mrs. Carey scolded Mary Ann, and Mary Ann
answered that she could not think of everything. She hurried away to
fetch an egg, and Mrs. Carey beat it up in a glass of sherry. The Vicar
swallowed it at a gulp. The communion plate was stowed in the carriage,
and they set off.

The fly came from The Red Lion and had a peculiar smell of stale straw.
They drove with both windows closed so that the Vicar should not catch
cold. The sexton was waiting at the porch to take the communion plate,
and while the Vicar went to the vestry Mrs. Carey and Philip settled
themselves in the vicarage pew. Mrs. Carey placed in front of her the
sixpenny bit she was accustomed to put in the plate, and gave Philip
threepence for the same purpose. The church filled up gradually and the
service began.

Philip grew bored during the sermon, but if he fidgetted Mrs. Carey put
a gentle hand on his arm and looked at him reproachfully. He regained
interest when the final hymn was sung and Mr. Graves passed round with
the plate.

When everyone had gone Mrs. Carey went into Miss Graves’ pew to have a
few words with her while they were waiting for the gentlemen, and
Philip went to the vestry. His uncle, the curate, and Mr. Graves were
still in their surplices. Mr. Carey gave him the remains of the
consecrated bread and told him he might eat it. He had been accustomed
to eat it himself, as it seemed blasphemous to throw it away, but
Philip’s keen appetite relieved him from the duty. Then they counted
the money. It consisted of pennies, sixpences and threepenny bits.
There were always two single shillings, one put in the plate by the
Vicar and the other by Mr. Graves; and sometimes there was a florin.
Mr. Graves told the Vicar who had given this. It was always a stranger
to Blackstable, and Mr. Carey wondered who he was. But Miss Graves had
observed the rash act and was able to tell Mrs. Carey that the stranger
came from London, was married and had children. During the drive home
Mrs. Carey passed the information on, and the Vicar made up his mind to
call on him and ask for a subscription to the Additional Curates
Society. Mr. Carey asked if Philip had behaved properly; and Mrs. Carey
remarked that Mrs. Wigram had a new mantle, Mr. Cox was not in church,
and somebody thought that Miss Phillips was engaged. When they reached
the vicarage they all felt that they deserved a substantial dinner.

When this was over Mrs. Carey went to her room to rest, and Mr. Carey
lay down on the sofa in the drawing-room for forty winks.

They had tea at five, and the Vicar ate an egg to support himself for
evensong. Mrs. Carey did not go to this so that Mary Ann might, but she
read the service through and the hymns. Mr. Carey walked to church in
the evening, and Philip limped along by his side. The walk through the
darkness along the country road strangely impressed him, and the church
with all its lights in the distance, coming gradually nearer, seemed
very friendly. At first he was shy with his uncle, but little by little
grew used to him, and he would slip his hand in his uncle’s and walk
more easily for the feeling of protection.

They had supper when they got home. Mr. Carey’s slippers were waiting
for him on a footstool in front of the fire and by their side Philip’s,
one the shoe of a small boy, the other misshapen and odd. He was
dreadfully tired when he went up to bed, and he did not resist when
Mary Ann undressed him. She kissed him after she tucked him up, and he
began to love her.




VIII


Philip had led always the solitary life of an only child, and his
loneliness at the vicarage was no greater than it had been when his
mother lived. He made friends with Mary Ann. She was a chubby little
person of thirty-five, the daughter of a fisherman, and had come to the
vicarage at eighteen; it was her first place and she had no intention
of leaving it; but she held a possible marriage as a rod over the timid
heads of her master and mistress. Her father and mother lived in a
little house off Harbour Street, and she went to see them on her
evenings out. Her stories of the sea touched Philip’s imagination, and
the narrow alleys round the harbour grew rich with the romance which
his young fancy lent them. One evening he asked whether he might go
home with her; but his aunt was afraid that he might catch something,
and his uncle said that evil communications corrupted good manners. He
disliked the fisher folk, who were rough, uncouth, and went to chapel.
But Philip was more comfortable in the kitchen than in the dining-room,
and, whenever he could, he took his toys and played there. His aunt was
not sorry. She did not like disorder, and though she recognised that
boys must be expected to be untidy she preferred that he should make a
mess in the kitchen. If he fidgeted his uncle was apt to grow restless
and say it was high time he went to school. Mrs. Carey thought Philip
very young for this, and her heart went out to the motherless child;
but her attempts to gain his affection were awkward, and the boy,
feeling shy, received her demonstrations with so much sullenness that
she was mortified. Sometimes she heard his shrill voice raised in
laughter in the kitchen, but when she went in, he grew suddenly silent,
and he flushed darkly when Mary Ann explained the joke. Mrs. Carey
could not see anything amusing in what she heard, and she smiled with
constraint.

“He seems happier with Mary Ann than with us, William,” she said, when
she returned to her sewing.

“One can see he’s been very badly brought up. He wants licking into
shape.”

On the second Sunday after Philip arrived an unlucky incident occurred.
Mr. Carey had retired as usual after dinner for a little snooze in the
drawing-room, but he was in an irritable mood and could not sleep.
Josiah Graves that morning had objected strongly to some candlesticks
with which the Vicar had adorned the altar. He had bought them
second-hand in Tercanbury, and he thought they looked very well. But
Josiah Graves said they were popish. This was a taunt that always
aroused the Vicar. He had been at Oxford during the movement which
ended in the secession from the Established Church of Edward Manning,
and he felt a certain sympathy for the Church of Rome. He would
willingly have made the service more ornate than had been usual in the
low-church parish of Blackstable, and in his secret soul he yearned for
processions and lighted candles. He drew the line at incense. He hated
the word protestant. He called himself a Catholic. He was accustomed to
say that Papists required an epithet, they were Roman Catholic; but the
Church of England was Catholic in the best, the fullest, and the
noblest sense of the term. He was pleased to think that his shaven face
gave him the look of a priest, and in his youth he had possessed an
ascetic air which added to the impression. He often related that on one
of his holidays in Boulogne, one of those holidays upon which his wife
for economy’s sake did not accompany him, when he was sitting in a
church, the cure had come up to him and invited him to preach a sermon.
He dismissed his curates when they married, having decided views on the
celibacy of the unbeneficed clergy. But when at an election the
Liberals had written on his garden fence in large blue letters: This
way to Rome, he had been very angry, and threatened to prosecute the
leaders of the Liberal party in Blackstable. He made up his mind now
that nothing Josiah Graves said would induce him to remove the
candlesticks from the altar, and he muttered Bismarck to himself once
or twice irritably.

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
feelings: 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.

Philip had a squeamish appetite, and the thick slabs of poor butter on
the bread turned his stomach, but he saw other boys scraping it off and
followed their example. They all had potted meats and such like, which
they had brought in their play-boxes; and some had ‘extras,’ eggs or
bacon, upon which Mr. Watson made a profit. When he had asked Mr. Carey
whether Philip was to have these, Mr. Carey replied that he did not
think boys should be spoilt. Mr. Watson quite agreed with him—he
considered nothing was better than bread and butter for growing
lads—but some parents, unduly pampering their offspring, insisted on
it.

Philip noticed that ‘extras’ gave boys a certain consideration and made
up his mind, when he wrote to Aunt Louisa, to ask for them.

After breakfast the boys wandered out into the play-ground. Here the
day-boys were gradually assembling. They were sons of the local clergy,
of the officers at the Depot, and of such manufacturers or men of
business as the old town possessed. Presently a bell rang, and they all
trooped into school. This consisted of a large, long room at opposite
ends of which two under-masters conducted the second and third forms,
and of a smaller one, leading out of it, used by Mr. Watson, who taught
the first form. To attach the preparatory to the senior school these
three classes were known officially, on speech days and in reports, as
upper, middle, and lower second. Philip was put in the last. The
master, a red-faced man with a pleasant voice, was called Rice; he had
a jolly manner with boys, and the time passed quickly. Philip was
surprised when it was a quarter to eleven and they were let out for ten
minutes’ rest.

The whole school rushed noisily into the play-ground. The new boys were
told to go into the middle, while the others stationed themselves along
opposite walls. They began to play Pig in the Middle. The old boys ran
from wall to wall while the new boys tried to catch them: when one was
seized and the mystic words said—one, two, three, and a pig for me—he
became a prisoner and, turning sides, helped to catch those who were
still free. Philip saw a boy running past and tried to catch him, but
his limp gave him no chance; and the runners, taking their opportunity,
made straight for the ground he covered. Then one of them had the
brilliant idea of imitating Philip’s clumsy run. Other boys saw it and
began to laugh; then they all copied the first; and they ran round
Philip, limping grotesquely, screaming in their treble voices with
shrill laughter. They lost their heads with the delight of their new
amusement, and choked with helpless merriment. One of them tripped
Philip up and he fell, heavily as he always fell, and cut his knee.
They laughed all the louder when he got up. A boy pushed him from
behind, and he would have fallen again if another had not caught him.
The game was forgotten in the entertainment of Philip’s deformity. One
of them invented an odd, rolling limp that struck the rest as supremely
ridiculous, and several of the boys lay down on the ground and rolled
about in laughter: Philip was completely scared. He could not make out
why they were laughing at him. His heart beat so that he could hardly
breathe, and he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life.
He stood still stupidly while the boys ran round him, mimicking and
laughing; they shouted to him to try and catch them; but he did not
move. He did not want them to see him run any more. He was using all
his strength to prevent himself from crying.

Suddenly the bell rang, and they all trooped back to school. Philip’s
knee was bleeding, and he was dusty and dishevelled. For some minutes
Mr. Rice could not control his form. They were excited still by the
strange novelty, and Philip saw one or two of them furtively looking
down at his feet. He tucked them under the bench.

In the afternoon they went up to play football, but Mr. Watson stopped
Philip on the way out after dinner.

“I suppose you can’t play football, Carey?” he asked him.

Philip blushed self-consciously.

“No, sir.”

“Very well. You’d better go up to the field. You can walk as far as
that, can’t you?”

Philip had no idea where the field was, but he answered all the same.

“Yes, sir.”

The boys went in charge of Mr. Rice, who glanced at Philip and seeing
he had not changed, asked why he was not going to play.

“Mr. Watson said I needn’t, sir,” said Philip.

“Why?”

There were boys all round him, looking at him curiously, and a feeling
of shame came over Philip. He looked down without answering. Others
gave the reply.

“He’s got a club-foot, sir.”

“Oh, I see.”

Mr. Rice was quite young; he had only taken his degree a year before;
and he was suddenly embarrassed. His instinct was to beg the boy’s
pardon, but he was too shy to do so. He made his voice gruff and loud.

“Now then, you boys, what are you waiting about for? Get on with you.”

Some of them had already started and those that were left now set off,
in groups of two or three.

“You’d better come along with me, Carey,” said the master “You don’t
know the way, do you?”

Philip guessed the kindness, and a sob came to his throat.

“I can’t go very fast, sir.”

“Then I’ll go very slow,” said the master, with a smile.

Philip’s heart went out to the red-faced, commonplace young man who
said a gentle word to him. He suddenly felt less unhappy.

But at night when they went up to bed and were undressing, the boy who
was called Singer came out of his cubicle and put his head in Philip’s.

“I say, let’s look at your foot,” he said.

“No,” answered Philip.

He jumped into bed quickly.

“Don’t say no to me,” said Singer. “Come on, Mason.”

The boy in the next cubicle was looking round the corner, and at the
words he slipped in. They made for Philip and tried to tear the
bed-clothes off him, but he held them tightly.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” he cried.

Singer seized a brush and with the back of it beat Philip’s hands
clenched on the blanket. Philip cried out.

“Why don’t you show us your foot quietly?”

“I won’t.”

In desperation Philip clenched his fist and hit the boy who tormented
him, but he was at a disadvantage, and the boy seized his arm. He began
to turn it.

“Oh, don’t, don’t,” said Philip. “You’ll break my arm.”

“Stop still then and put out your foot.”

Philip gave a sob and a gasp. The boy gave the arm another wrench. The
pain was unendurable.

“All right. I’ll do it,” said Philip.

He put out his foot. Singer still kept his hand on Philip’s wrist. He
looked curiously at the deformity.

“Isn’t it beastly?” said Mason.

Another came in and looked too.

“Ugh,” he said, in disgust.

“My word, it is rum,” said Singer, making a face. “Is it hard?”

He touched it with the tip of his forefinger, cautiously, as though it
were something that had a life of its own. Suddenly they heard Mr.
Watson’s heavy tread on the stairs. They threw the clothes back on
Philip and dashed like rabbits into their cubicles. Mr. Watson came
into the dormitory. Raising himself on tiptoe he could see over the rod
that bore the green curtain, and he looked into two or three of the
cubicles. The little boys were safely in bed. He put out the light and
went out.

Singer called out to Philip, but he did not answer. He had got his
teeth in the pillow so that his sobbing should be inaudible. He was not
crying for the pain they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had
suffered when they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself
because, unable to stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his
own accord.

And then he felt the misery of his life. It seemed to his childish mind
that this unhappiness must go on for ever. For no particular reason he
remembered that cold morning when Emma had taken him out of bed and put
him beside his mother. He had not thought of it once since it happened,
but now he seemed to feel the warmth of his mother’s body against his
and her arms around him. Suddenly it seemed to him that his life was a
dream, his mother’s death, and the life at the vicarage, and these two
wretched days at school, and he would awake in the morning and be back
again at home. His tears dried as he thought of it. He was too unhappy,
it must be nothing but a dream, and his mother was alive, and Emma
would come up presently and go to bed. He fell asleep.

But when he awoke next morning it was to the clanging of a bell, and
the first thing his eyes saw was the green curtain of his cubicle.




XII


As time went on Philip’s deformity ceased to interest. It was accepted
like one boy’s red hair and another’s unreasonable corpulence. But
meanwhile he had grown horribly sensitive. He never ran if he could
help it, because he knew it made his limp more conspicuous, and he
adopted a peculiar walk. He stood still as much as he could, with his
club-foot behind the other, so that it should not attract notice, and
he was constantly on the look out for any reference to it. Because he
could not join in the games which other boys played, their life
remained strange to him; he only interested himself from the outside in
their doings; and it seemed to him that there was a barrier between
them and him. Sometimes they seemed to think that it was his fault if
he could not play football, and he was unable to make them understand.
He was left a good deal to himself. He had been inclined to
talkativeness, but gradually he became silent. He began to think of the
difference between himself and others.

The biggest boy in his dormitory, Singer, took a dislike to him, and
Philip, small for his age, had to put up with a good deal of hard
treatment. About half-way through the term a mania ran through the
school for a game called Nibs. It was a game for two, played on a table
or a form with steel pens. You had to push your nib with the
finger-nail so as to get the point of it over your opponent’s, while he
manoeuvred to prevent this and to get the point of his nib over the
back of yours; when this result was achieved you breathed on the ball
of your thumb, pressed it hard on the two nibs, and if you were able
then to lift them without dropping either, both nibs became yours. Soon
nothing was seen but boys playing this game, and the more skilful
acquired vast stores of nibs. But in a little while Mr. Watson made up
his mind that it was a form of gambling, forbade the game, and
confiscated all the nibs in the boys’ possession. Philip had been very
adroit, and it was with a heavy heart that he gave up his winning; but
his fingers itched to play still, and a few days later, on his way to
the football field, he went into a shop and bought a pennyworth of J
pens. He carried them loose in his pocket and enjoyed feeling them.
Presently Singer found out that he had them. Singer had given up his
nibs too, but he had kept back a very large one, called a Jumbo, which
was almost unconquerable, and he could not resist the opportunity of
getting Philip’s Js out of him. Though Philip knew that he was at a
disadvantage with his small nibs, he had an adventurous disposition and
was willing to take the risk; besides, he was aware that Singer would
not allow him to refuse. He had not played for a week and sat down to
the game now with a thrill of excitement. He lost two of his small nibs
quickly, and Singer was jubilant, but the third time by some chance the
Jumbo slipped round and Philip was able to push his J across it. He
crowed with triumph. At that moment Mr. Watson came in.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

He looked from Singer to Philip, but neither answered.

“Don’t you know that I’ve forbidden you to play that idiotic game?”

Philip’s heart beat fast. He knew what was coming and was dreadfully
frightened, but in his fright there was a certain exultation. He had
never been swished. Of course it would hurt, but it was something to
boast about afterwards.

“Come into my study.”

The headmaster turned, and they followed him side by side Singer
whispered to Philip:

“We’re in for it.”

Mr. Watson pointed to Singer.

“Bend over,” he said.

Philip, very white, saw the boy quiver at each stroke, and after the
third he heard him cry out. Three more followed.

“That’ll do. Get up.”

Singer stood up. The tears were streaming down his face. Philip stepped
forward. Mr. Watson looked at him for a moment.

“I’m not going to cane you. You’re a new boy. And I can’t hit a
cripple. Go away, both of you, and don’t be naughty again.”

When they got back into the school-room a group of boys, who had
learned in some mysterious way what was happening, were waiting for
them. They set upon Singer at once with eager questions. Singer faced
them, his face red with the pain and marks of tears still on his
cheeks. He pointed with his head at Philip, who was standing a little
behind him.

“He got off because he’s a cripple,” he said angrily.

Philip stood silent and flushed. He felt that they looked at him with
contempt.

“How many did you get?” one boy asked Singer.

But he did not answer. He was angry because he had been hurt

“Don’t ask me to play Nibs with you again,” he said to Philip. “It’s
jolly nice for you. You don’t risk anything.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“Didn’t you!”

He quickly put out his foot and tripped Philip up. Philip was always
rather unsteady on his feet, and he fell heavily to the ground.

“Cripple,” said Singer.

For the rest of the term he tormented Philip cruelly, and, though
Philip tried to keep out of his way, the school was so small that it
was impossible; he tried being friendly and jolly with him; he abased
himself, so far as to buy him a knife; but though Singer took the knife
he was not placated. Once or twice, driven beyond endurance, he hit and
kicked the bigger boy, but Singer was so much stronger that Philip was
helpless, and he was always forced after more or less torture to beg
his pardon. It was that which rankled with Philip: he could not bear
the humiliation of apologies, which were wrung from him by pain greater
than he could bear. And what made it worse was that there seemed no end
to his wretchedness; Singer was only eleven and would not go to the
upper school till he was thirteen. Philip realised that he must live
two years with a tormentor from whom there was no escape. He was only
happy while he was working and when he got into bed. And often there
recurred to him then that queer feeling that his life with all its
misery was nothing but a dream, and that he would awake in the morning
in his own little bed in London.




XIII


Two years passed, and Philip was nearly twelve. He was in the first
form, within two or three places of the top, and after Christmas when
several boys would be leaving for the senior school he would be head
boy. He had already quite a collection of prizes, worthless books on
bad paper, but in gorgeous bindings decorated with the arms of the
school: his position had freed him from bullying, and he was not
unhappy. His fellows forgave him his success because of his deformity.

“After all, it’s jolly easy for him to get prizes,” they said, “there’s
nothing he CAN do but swat.”

He had lost his early terror of Mr. Watson. He had grown used to the
loud voice, and when the headmaster’s heavy hand was laid on his
shoulder Philip discerned vaguely the intention of a caress. He had the
good memory which is more useful for scholastic achievements than
mental power, and he knew Mr. Watson expected him to leave the
preparatory school with a scholarship.

But he had grown very self-conscious. The new-born child does not
realise that his body is more a part of himself than surrounding
objects, and will play with his toes without any feeling that they
belong to him more than the rattle by his side; and it is only by
degrees, through pain, that he understands the fact of the body. And
experiences of the same kind are necessary for the individual to become
conscious of himself; but here there is the difference that, although
everyone becomes equally conscious of his body as a separate and
complete organism, everyone does not become equally conscious of
himself as a complete and separate personality. The feeling of
apartness from others comes to most with puberty, but it is not always
developed to such a degree as to make the difference between the
individual and his fellows noticeable to the individual. It is such as
he, as little conscious of himself as the bee in a hive, who are the
lucky in life, for they have the best chance of happiness: their
activities are shared by all, and their pleasures are only pleasures
because they are enjoyed in common; you will see them on Whit-Monday
dancing on Hampstead Heath, shouting at a football match, or from club
windows in Pall Mall cheering a royal procession. It is because of them
that man has been called a social animal.

Philip passed from the innocence of childhood to bitter consciousness
of himself by the ridicule which his club-foot had excited. The
circumstances of his case were so peculiar that he could not apply to
them the ready-made rules which acted well enough in ordinary affairs,
and he was forced to think for himself. The many books he had read
filled his mind with ideas which, because he only half understood them,
gave more scope to his imagination. Beneath his painful shyness
something was growing up within him, and obscurely he realised his
personality. But at times it gave him odd surprises; he did things, he
knew not why, and afterwards when he thought of them found himself all
at sea.

There was a boy called Luard between whom and Philip a friendship had
arisen, and one day, when they were playing together in the
school-room, Luard began to perform some trick with an ebony pen-holder
of Philip’s.

“Don’t play the giddy ox,” said Philip. “You’ll only break it.”

“I shan’t.”

But no sooner were the words out of the boy’s mouth than the pen-holder
snapped in two. Luard looked at Philip with dismay.

“Oh, I say, I’m awfully sorry.”

The tears rolled down Philip’s cheeks, but he did not answer.

“I say, what’s the matter?” said Luard, with surprise. “I’ll get you
another one exactly the same.”

“It’s not about the pen-holder I care,” said Philip, in a trembling
voice, “only it was given me by my mater, just before she died.”

“I say, I’m awfully sorry, Carey.”

“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your fault.”

Philip took the two pieces of the pen-holder and looked at them. He
tried to restrain his sobs. He felt utterly miserable. And yet he could
not tell why, for he knew quite well that he had bought the pen-holder
during his last holidays at Blackstable for one and twopence. He did
not know in the least what had made him invent that pathetic story, but
he was quite as unhappy as though it had been true. The pious
atmosphere of the vicarage and the religious tone of the school had
made Philip’s conscience very sensitive; he absorbed insensibly the
feeling about him that the Tempter was ever on the watch to gain his
immortal soul; and though he was not more truthful than most boys he
never told a lie without suffering from remorse. When he thought over
this incident he was very much distressed, and made up his mind that he
must go to Luard and tell him that the story was an invention. Though
he dreaded humiliation more than anything in the world, he hugged
himself for two or three days at the thought of the agonising joy of
humiliating himself to the Glory of God. But he never got any further.
He satisfied his conscience by the more comfortable method of
expressing his repentance only to the Almighty. But he could not
understand why he should have been so genuinely affected by the story
he was making up. The tears that flowed down his grubby cheeks were
real tears. Then by some accident of association there occurred to him
that scene when Emma had told him of his mother’s death, and, though he
could not speak for crying, he had insisted on going in to say good-bye
to the Misses Watkin so that they might see his grief and pity him.




XIV


Then a wave of religiosity passed through the school. Bad language was
no longer heard, and the little nastinesses of small boys were looked
upon with hostility; the bigger boys, like the lords temporal of the
Middle Ages, used the strength of their arms to persuade those weaker
than themselves to virtuous courses.

Philip, his restless mind avid for new things, became very devout. He
heard soon that it was possible to join a Bible League, and wrote to
London for particulars. These consisted in a form to be filled up with
the applicant’s name, age, and school; a solemn declaration to be
signed that he would read a set portion of Holy Scripture every night
for a year; and a request for half a crown; this, it was explained, was
demanded partly to prove the earnestness of the applicant’s desire to
become a member of the League, and partly to cover clerical expenses.
Philip duly sent the papers and the money, and in return received a
calendar worth about a penny, on which was set down the appointed
passage to be read each day, and a sheet of paper on one side of which
was a picture of the Good Shepherd and a lamb, and on the other,
decoratively framed in red lines, a short prayer which had to be said
before beginning to read.

Every evening he undressed as quickly as possible in order to have time
for his task before the gas was put out. He read industriously, as he
read always, without criticism, stories of cruelty, deceit,
ingratitude, dishonesty, and low cunning. Actions which would have
excited his horror in the life about him, in the reading passed through
his mind without comment, because they were committed under the direct
inspiration of God. The method of the League was to alternate a book of
the Old Testament with a book of the New, and one night Philip came
across these words of Jesus Christ:

If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is
done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be
thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

And all this, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall
receive.

They made no particular impression on him, but it happened that two or
three days later, being Sunday, the Canon in residence chose them for
the text of his sermon. Even if Philip had wanted to hear this it would
have been impossible, for the boys of King’s School sit in the choir,
and the pulpit stands at the corner of the transept so that the
preacher’s back is almost turned to them. The distance also is so great
that it needs a man with a fine voice and a knowledge of elocution to
make himself heard in the choir; and according to long usage the Canons
of Tercanbury are chosen for their learning rather than for any
qualities which might be of use in a cathedral church. But the words of
the text, perhaps because he had read them so short a while before,
came clearly enough to Philip’s ears, and they seemed on a sudden to
have a personal application. He thought about them through most of the
sermon, and that night, on getting into bed, he turned over the pages
of the Gospel and found once more the passage. Though he believed
implicitly everything he saw in print, he had learned already that in
the Bible things that said one thing quite clearly often mysteriously
meant another. There was no one he liked to ask at school, so he kept
the question he had in mind till the Christmas holidays, and then one
day he made an opportunity. It was after supper and prayers were just
finished. Mrs. Carey was counting the eggs that Mary Ann had brought in
as usual and writing on each one the date. Philip stood at the table
and pretended to turn listlessly the pages of the Bible.

“I say, Uncle William, this passage here, does it really mean that?”

He put his finger against it as though he had come across it
accidentally.

Mr. Carey looked up over his spectacles. He was holding The Blackstable
Times in front of the fire. It had come in that evening damp from the
press, and the Vicar always aired it for ten minutes before he began to
read.

“What passage is that?” he asked.

“Why, this about if you have faith you can remove mountains.”

“If it says so in the Bible it is so, Philip,” said Mrs. Carey gently,
taking up the plate-basket.

Philip looked at his uncle for an answer.

“It’s a matter of faith.”

“D’you mean to say that if you really believed you could move mountains
you could?”

“By the grace of God,” said the Vicar.

“Now, say good-night to your uncle, Philip,” said Aunt Louisa. “You’re
not wanting to move a mountain tonight, are you?”

Philip allowed himself to be kissed on the forehead by his uncle and
preceded Mrs. Carey upstairs. He had got the information he wanted. His
little room was icy, and he shivered when he put on his nightshirt. But
he always felt that his prayers were more pleasing to God when he said
them under conditions of discomfort. The coldness of his hands and feet
were an offering to the Almighty. And tonight he sank on his knees;
buried his face in his hands, and prayed to God with all his might that
He would make his club-foot whole. It was a very small thing beside the
moving of mountains. He knew that God could do it if He wished, and his
own faith was complete. Next morning, finishing his prayers with the
same request, he fixed a date for the miracle.

“Oh, God, in Thy loving mercy and goodness, if it be Thy will, please
make my foot all right on the night before I go back to school.”

He was glad to get his petition into a formula, and he repeated it
later in the dining-room during the short pause which the Vicar always
made after prayers, before he rose from his knees. He said it again in
the evening and again, shivering in his nightshirt, before he got into
bed. And he believed. For once he looked forward with eagerness to the
end of the holidays. He laughed to himself as he thought of his uncle’s
astonishment when he ran down the stairs three at a time; and after
breakfast he and Aunt Louisa would have to hurry out and buy a new pair
of boots. At school they would be astounded.

“Hulloa, Carey, what have you done with your foot?”

“Oh, it’s all right now,” he would answer casually, as though it were
the most natural thing in the world.

He would be able to play football. His heart leaped as he saw himself
running, running, faster than any of the other boys. At the end of the
Easter term there were the sports, and he would be able to go in for
the races; he rather fancied himself over the hurdles. It would be
splendid to be like everyone else, not to be stared at curiously by new
boys who did not know about his deformity, nor at the baths in summer
to need incredible precautions, while he was undressing, before he
could hide his foot in the water.

He prayed with all the power of his soul. No doubts assailed him. He
was confident in the word of God. And the night before he was to go
back to school he went up to bed tremulous with excitement. There was
snow on the ground, and Aunt Louisa had allowed herself the
unaccustomed luxury of a fire in her bed-room; but in Philip’s little
room it was so cold that his fingers were numb, and he had great
difficulty in undoing his collar. His teeth chattered. The idea came to
him that he must do something more than usual to attract the attention
of God, and he turned back the rug which was in front of his bed so
that he could kneel on the bare boards; and then it struck him that his
nightshirt was a softness that might displease his Maker, so he took it
off and said his prayers naked. When he got into bed he was so cold
that for some time he could not sleep, but when he did, it was so
soundly that Mary Ann had to shake him when she brought in his hot
water next morning. She talked to him while she drew the curtains, but
he did not answer; he had remembered at once that this was the morning
for the miracle. His heart was filled with joy and gratitude. His first
instinct was to put down his hand and feel the foot which was whole
now, but to do this seemed to doubt the goodness of God. He knew that
his foot was well. But at last he made up his mind, and with the toes
of his right foot he just touched his left. Then he passed his hand
over it.

He limped downstairs just as Mary Ann was going into the dining-room
for prayers, and then he sat down to breakfast.

“You’re very quiet this morning, Philip,” said Aunt Louisa presently.

“He’s thinking of the good breakfast he’ll have at school to-morrow,”
said the Vicar.

When Philip answered, it was in a way that always irritated his uncle,
with something that had nothing to do with the matter in hand. He
called it a bad habit of wool-gathering.

“Supposing you’d asked God to do something,” said Philip, “and really
believed it was going to happen, like moving a mountain, I mean, and
you had faith, and it didn’t happen, what would it mean?”

“What a funny boy you are!” said Aunt Louisa. “You asked about moving
mountains two or three weeks ago.”

“It would just mean that you hadn’t got faith,” answered Uncle William.

Philip accepted the explanation. If God had not cured him, it was
because he did not really believe. And yet he did not see how he could
believe more than he did. But perhaps he had not given God enough time.
He had only asked Him for nineteen days. In a day or two he began his
prayer again, and this time he fixed upon Easter. That was the day of
His Son’s glorious resurrection, and God in His happiness might be
mercifully inclined. But now Philip added other means of attaining his
desire: he began to wish, when he saw a new moon or a dappled horse,
and he looked out for shooting stars; during exeat they had a chicken
at the vicarage, and he broke the lucky bone with Aunt Louisa and
wished again, each time that his foot might be made whole. He was
appealing unconsciously to gods older to his race than the God of
Israel. And he bombarded the Almighty with his prayer, at odd times of
the day, whenever it occurred to him, in identical words always, for it
seemed to him important to make his request in the same terms. But
presently the feeling came to him that this time also his faith would
not be great enough. He could not resist the doubt that assailed him.
He made his own experience into a general rule.

“I suppose no one ever has faith enough,” he said.

It was like the salt which his nurse used to tell him about: you could
catch any bird by putting salt on his tail; and once he had taken a
little bag of it into Kensington Gardens. But he could never get near
enough to put the salt on a bird’s tail. Before Easter he had given up
the struggle. He felt a dull resentment against his uncle for taking
him in. The text which spoke of the moving of mountains was just one of
those that said one thing and meant another. He thought his uncle had
been playing a practical joke on him.




XV


The King’s School at Tercanbury, to which Philip went when he was
thirteen, prided itself on its antiquity. It traced its origin to an
abbey school, founded before the Conquest, where the rudiments of
learning were taught by Augustine monks; and, like many another
establishment of this sort, on the destruction of the monasteries it
had been reorganised by the officers of King Henry VIII and thus
acquired its name. Since then, pursuing its modest course, it had given
to the sons of the local gentry and of the professional people of Kent
an education sufficient to their needs. One or two men of letters,
beginning with a poet, than whom only Shakespeare had a more splendid
genius, and ending with a writer of prose whose view of life has
affected profoundly the generation of which Philip was a member, had
gone forth from its gates to achieve fame; it had produced one or two
eminent lawyers, but eminent lawyers are common, and one or two
soldiers of distinction; but during the three centuries since its
separation from the monastic order it had trained especially men of the
church, bishops, deans, canons, and above all country clergymen: there
were boys in the school whose fathers, grandfathers,
great-grandfathers, had been educated there and had all been rectors of
parishes in the diocese of Tercanbury; and they came to it with their
minds made up already to be ordained. But there were signs
notwithstanding that even there changes were coming; for a few,
repeating what they had heard at home, said that the Church was no
longer what it used to be. It wasn’t so much the money; but the class
of people who went in for it weren’t the same; and two or three boys
knew curates whose fathers were tradesmen: they’d rather go out to the
Colonies (in those days the Colonies were still the last hope of those
who could get nothing to do in England) than be a curate under some
chap who wasn’t a gentleman. At King’s School, as at Blackstable
Vicarage, a tradesman was anyone who was not lucky enough to own land
(and here a fine distinction was made between the gentleman farmer and
the landowner), or did not follow one of the four professions to which
it was possible for a gentleman to belong. Among the day-boys, of whom
there were about a hundred and fifty, sons of the local gentry and of
the men stationed at the depot, those whose fathers were engaged in
business were made to feel the degradation of their state.

The masters had no patience with modern ideas of education, which they
read of sometimes in The Times or The Guardian, and hoped fervently
that King’s School would remain true to its old traditions. The dead
languages were taught with such thoroughness that an old boy seldom
thought of Homer or Virgil in after life without a qualm of boredom;
and though in the common room at dinner one or two bolder spirits
suggested that mathematics were of increasing importance, the general
feeling was that they were a less noble study than the classics.
Neither German nor chemistry was taught, and French only by the
form-masters; they could keep order better than a foreigner, and, since
they knew the grammar as well as any Frenchman, it seemed unimportant
that none of them could have got a cup of coffee in the restaurant at
Boulogne unless the waiter had known a little English. Geography was
taught chiefly by making boys draw maps, and this was a favourite
occupation, especially when the country dealt with was mountainous: it
was possible to waste a great deal of time in drawing the Andes or the
Apennines. The masters, graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, were ordained
and unmarried; if by chance they wished to marry they could only do so
by accepting one of the smaller livings at the disposal of the Chapter;
but for many years none of them had cared to leave the refined society
of Tercanbury, which owing to the cavalry depot had a martial as well
as an ecclesiastical tone, for the monotony of life in a country
rectory; and they were now all men of middle age.

The headmaster, on the other hand, was obliged to be married and he
conducted the school till age began to tell upon him. When he retired
he was rewarded with a much better living than any of the under-masters
could hope for, and an honorary Canonry.

But a year before Philip entered the school a great change had come
over it. It had been obvious for some time that Dr. Fleming, who had
been headmaster for the quarter of a century, was become too deaf to
continue his work to the greater glory of God; and when one of the
livings on the outskirts of the city fell vacant, with a stipend of six
hundred a year, the Chapter offered it to him in such a manner as to
imply that they thought it high time for him to retire. He could nurse
his ailments comfortably on such an income. Two or three curates who
had hoped for preferment told their wives it was scandalous to give a
parish that needed a young, strong, and energetic man to an old fellow
who knew nothing of parochial work, and had feathered his nest already;
but the mutterings of the unbeneficed clergy do not reach the ears of a
cathedral Chapter. And as for the parishioners they had nothing to say
in the matter, and therefore nobody asked for their opinion. The
Wesleyans and the Baptists both had chapels in the village.

When Dr. Fleming was thus disposed of it became necessary to find a
successor. It was contrary to the traditions of the school that one of
the lower-masters should be chosen. The common-room was unanimous in
desiring the election of Mr. Watson, headmaster of the preparatory
school; he could hardly be described as already a master of King’s
School, they had all known him for twenty years, and there was no
danger that he would make a nuisance of himself. But the Chapter sprang
a surprise on them. It chose a man called Perkins. At first nobody knew
who Perkins was, and the name favourably impressed no one; but before
the shock of it had passed away, it was realised that Perkins was the
son of Perkins the linendraper. Dr. Fleming informed the masters just
before dinner, and his manner showed his consternation. Such of them as
were dining in, ate their meal almost in silence, and no reference was
made to the matter till the servants had left the room. Then they set
to. The names of those present on this occasion are unimportant, but
they had been known to generations of school-boys as Sighs, Tar, Winks,
Squirts, and Pat.

They all knew Tom Perkins. The first thing about him was that he was
not a gentleman. They remembered him quite well. He was a small, dark
boy, with untidy black hair and large eyes. He looked like a gipsy. He
had come to the school as a day-boy, with the best scholarship on their
endowment, so that his education had cost him nothing. Of course he was
brilliant. At every Speech-Day he was loaded with prizes. He was their
show-boy, and they remembered now bitterly their fear that he would try
to get some scholarship at one of the larger public schools and so pass
out of their hands. Dr. Fleming had gone to the linendraper his
father—they all remembered the shop, Perkins and Cooper, in St.
Catherine’s Street—and said he hoped Tom would remain with them till he
went to Oxford. The school was Perkins and Cooper’s best customer, and
Mr. Perkins was only too glad to give the required assurance. Tom
Perkins continued to triumph, he was the finest classical scholar that
Dr. Fleming remembered, and on leaving the school took with him the
most valuable scholarship they had to offer. He got another at Magdalen
and settled down to a brilliant career at the University. The school
magazine recorded the distinctions he achieved year after year, and
when he got his double first Dr. Fleming himself wrote a few words of
eulogy on the front page. It was with greater satisfaction that they
welcomed his success, since Perkins and Cooper had fallen upon evil
days: Cooper drank like a fish, and just before Tom Perkins took his
degree the linendrapers filed their petition in bankruptcy.

In due course Tom Perkins took Holy Orders and entered upon the
profession for which he was so admirably suited. He had been an
assistant master at Wellington and then at Rugby.

But there was quite a difference between welcoming his success at other
schools and serving under his leadership in their own. Tar had
frequently given him lines, and Squirts had boxed his ears. They could
not imagine how the Chapter had made such a mistake. No one could be
expected to forget that he was the son of a bankrupt linendraper, and
the alcoholism of Cooper seemed to increase the disgrace. It was
understood that the Dean had supported his candidature with zeal, so
the Dean would probably ask him to dinner; but would the pleasant
little dinners in the precincts ever be the same when Tom Perkins sat
at the table? And what about the depot? He really could not expect
officers and gentlemen to receive him as one of themselves. It would do
the school incalculable harm. Parents would be dissatisfied, and no one
could be surprised if there were wholesale withdrawals. And then the
indignity of calling him Mr. Perkins! The masters thought by way of
protest of sending in their resignations in a body, but the uneasy fear
that they would be accepted with equanimity restrained them.

“The only thing is to prepare ourselves for changes,” said Sighs, who
had conducted the fifth form for five and twenty years with
unparalleled incompetence.

And when they saw him they were not reassured. Dr. Fleming invited them
to meet him at luncheon. He was now a man of thirty-two, tall and lean,
but with the same wild and unkempt look they remembered on him as a
boy. His clothes, ill-made and shabby, were put on untidily. His hair
was as black and as long as ever, and he had plainly never learned to
brush it; it fell over his forehead with every gesture, and he had a
quick movement of the hand with which he pushed it back from his eyes.
He had a black moustache and a beard which came high up on his face
almost to the cheek-bones, He talked to the masters quite easily, as
though he had parted from them a week or two before; he was evidently
delighted to see them. He seemed unconscious of the strangeness of the
position and appeared not to notice any oddness in being addressed as
Mr. Perkins.

When he bade them good-bye, one of the masters, for something to say,
remarked that he was allowing himself plenty of time to catch his
train.

“I want to go round and have a look at the shop,” he answered
cheerfully.

There was a distinct embarrassment. They wondered that he could be so
tactless, and to make it worse Dr. Fleming had not heard what he said.
His wife shouted it in his ear.

“He wants to go round and look at his father’s old shop.”

Only Tom Perkins was unconscious of the humiliation which the whole
party felt. He turned to Mrs. Fleming.

“Who’s got it now, d’you know?”

She could hardly answer. She was very angry.

“It’s still a linendraper’s,” she said bitterly. “Grove is the name. We
don’t deal there any more.”

“I wonder if he’d let me go over the house.”

“I expect he would if you explain who you are.”

It was not till the end of dinner that evening that any reference was
made in the common-room to the subject that was in all their minds.
Then it was Sighs who asked:

“Well, what did you think of our new head?” They thought of the
conversation at luncheon. It was hardly a conversation; it was a
monologue. Perkins had talked incessantly. He talked very quickly, with
a flow of easy words and in a deep, resonant voice. He had a short, odd
little laugh which showed his white teeth. They had followed him with
difficulty, for his mind darted from subject to subject with a
connection they did not always catch. He talked of pedagogics, and this
was natural enough; but he had much to say of modern theories in
Germany which they had never heard of and received with misgiving. He
talked of the classics, but he had been to Greece, and he discoursed of
archaeology; he had once spent a winter digging; they could not see how
that helped a man to teach boys to pass examinations, He talked of
politics. It sounded odd to them to hear him compare Lord Beaconsfield
with Alcibiades. He talked of Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule. They
realised that he was a Liberal. Their hearts sank. He talked of German
philosophy and of French fiction. They could not think a man profound
whose interests were so diverse.

It was Winks who summed up the general impression and put it into a
form they all felt conclusively damning. Winks was the master of the
upper third, a weak-kneed man with drooping eye-lids, He was too tall
for his strength, and his movements were slow and languid. He gave an
impression of lassitude, and his nickname was eminently appropriate.

“He’s very enthusiastic,” said Winks.

Enthusiasm was ill-bred. Enthusiasm was ungentlemanly. They thought of
the Salvation Army with its braying trumpets and its drums. Enthusiasm
meant change. They had goose-flesh when they thought of all the
pleasant old habits which stood in imminent danger. They hardly dared
to look forward to the future.

“He looks more of a gipsy than ever,” said one, after a pause.

“I wonder if the Dean and Chapter knew that he was a Radical when they
elected him,” another observed bitterly.

But conversation halted. They were too much disturbed for words.

When Tar and Sighs were walking together to the Chapter House on
Speech-Day a week later, Tar, who had a bitter tongue, remarked to his
colleague:

“Well, we’ve seen a good many Speech-Days here, haven’t we? I wonder if
we shall see another.”

Sighs was more melancholy even than usual.

“If anything worth having comes along in the way of a living I don’t
mind when I retire.”




XVI


A year passed, and when Philip came to the school the old masters were
all in their places; but a good many changes had taken place
notwithstanding their stubborn resistance, none the less formidable
because it was concealed under an apparent desire to fall in with the
new head’s ideas. Though the form-masters still taught French to the
lower school, another master had come, with a degree of doctor of
philology from the University of Heidelberg and a record of three years
spent in a French lycee, to teach French to the upper forms and German
to anyone who cared to take it up instead of Greek. Another master was
engaged to teach mathematics more systematically than had been found
necessary hitherto. Neither of these was ordained. This was a real
revolution, and when the pair arrived the older masters received them
with distrust. A laboratory had been fitted up, army classes were
instituted; they all said the character of the school was changing. And
heaven only knew what further projects Mr. Perkins turned in that
untidy head of his. The school was small as public schools go, there
were not more than two hundred boarders; and it was difficult for it to
grow larger, for it was huddled up against the Cathedral; the
precincts, with the exception of a house in which some of the masters
lodged, were occupied by the cathedral clergy; and there was no more
room for building. But Mr. Perkins devised an elaborate scheme by which
he might obtain sufficient space to make the school double its present
size. He wanted to attract boys from London. He thought it would be
good for them to be thrown in contact with the Kentish lads, and it
would sharpen the country wits of these.

“It’s against all our traditions,” said Sighs, when Mr. Perkins made
the suggestion to him. “We’ve rather gone out of our way to avoid the
contamination of boys from London.”

“Oh, what nonsense!” said Mr. Perkins.

No one had ever told the form-master before that he talked nonsense,
and he was meditating an acid reply, in which perhaps he might insert a
veiled reference to hosiery, when Mr. Perkins in his impetuous way
attacked him outrageously.

“That house in the precincts—if you’d only marry I’d get the Chapter to
put another couple of stories on, and we’d make dormitories and
studies, and your wife could help you.”

The elderly clergyman gasped. Why should he marry? He was fifty-seven,
a man couldn’t marry at fifty-seven. He couldn’t start looking after a
house at his time of life. He didn’t want to marry. If the choice lay
between that and the country living he would much sooner resign. All he
wanted now was peace and quietness.

“I’m not thinking of marrying,” he said.

Mr. Perkins looked at him with his dark, bright eyes, and if there was
a twinkle in them poor Sighs never saw it.

“What a pity! Couldn’t you marry to oblige me? It would help me a great
deal with the Dean and Chapter when I suggest rebuilding your house.”

But Mr. Perkins’ most unpopular innovation was his system of taking
occasionally another man’s form. He asked it as a favour, but after all
it was a favour which could not be refused, and as Tar, otherwise Mr.
Turner, said, it was undignified for all parties. He gave no warning,
but after morning prayers would say to one of the masters:

“I wonder if you’d mind taking the Sixth today at eleven. We’ll change
over, shall we?”

They did not know whether this was usual at other schools, but
certainly it had never been done at Tercanbury. The results were
curious. Mr. Turner, who was the first victim, broke the news to his
form that the headmaster would take them for Latin that day, and on the
pretence that they might like to ask him a question or two so that they
should not make perfect fools of themselves, spent the last quarter of
an hour of the history lesson in construing for them the passage of
Livy which had been set for the day; but when he rejoined his class and
looked at the paper on which Mr. Perkins had written the marks, a
surprise awaited him; for the two boys at the top of the form seemed to
have done very ill, while others who had never distinguished themselves
before were given full marks. When he asked Eldridge, his cleverest
boy, what was the meaning of this the answer came sullenly:

“Mr. Perkins never gave us any construing to do. He asked me what I
knew about General Gordon.”

Mr. Turner looked at him in astonishment. The boys evidently felt they
had been hardly used, and he could not help agreeing with their silent
dissatisfaction. He could not see either what General Gordon had to do
with Livy. He hazarded an inquiry afterwards.

“Eldridge was dreadfully put out because you asked him what he knew
about General Gordon,” he said to the headmaster, with an attempt at a
chuckle.

Mr. Perkins laughed.

“I saw they’d got to the agrarian laws of Caius Gracchus, and I
wondered if they knew anything about the agrarian troubles in Ireland.
But all they knew about Ireland was that Dublin was on the Liffey. So I
wondered if they’d ever heard of General Gordon.”

Then the horrid fact was disclosed that the new head had a mania for
general information. He had doubts about the utility of examinations on
subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common
sense.

Sighs grew more worried every month; he could not get the thought out
of his head that Mr. Perkins would ask him to fix a day for his
marriage; and he hated the attitude the head adopted towards classical
literature. There was no doubt that he was a fine scholar, and he was
engaged on a work which was quite in the right tradition: he was
writing a treatise on the trees in Latin literature; but he talked of
it flippantly, as though it were a pastime of no great importance, like
billiards, which engaged his leisure but was not to be considered with
seriousness. And Squirts, the master of the Middle Third, grew more
ill-tempered every day.

It was in his form that Philip was put on entering the school. The Rev.
B. B. Gordon was a man by nature ill-suited to be a schoolmaster: he
was impatient and choleric. With no one to call him to account, with
only small boys to face him, he had long lost all power of
self-control. He began his work in a rage and ended it in a passion. He
was a man of middle height and of a corpulent figure; he had sandy
hair, worn very short and now growing gray, and a small bristly
moustache. His large face, with indistinct features and small blue
eyes, was naturally red, but during his frequent attacks of anger it
grew dark and purple. His nails were bitten to the quick, for while
some trembling boy was construing he would sit at his desk shaking with
the fury that consumed him, and gnaw his fingers. Stories, perhaps
exaggerated, were told of his violence, and two years before there had
been some excitement in the school when it was heard that one father
was threatening a prosecution: he had boxed the ears of a boy named
Walters with a book so violently that his hearing was affected and the
boy had to be taken away from the school. The boy’s father lived in
Tercanbury, and there had been much indignation in the city, the local
paper had referred to the matter; but Mr. Walters was only a brewer, so
the sympathy was divided. The rest of the boys, for reasons best known
to themselves, though they loathed the master, took his side in the
affair, and, to show their indignation that the school’s business had
been dealt with outside, made things as uncomfortable as they could for
Walters’ younger brother, who still remained. But Mr. Gordon had only
escaped the country living by the skin of his teeth, and he had never
hit a boy since. The right the masters possessed to cane boys on the
hand was taken away from them, and Squirts could no longer emphasize
his anger by beating his desk with the cane. He never did more now than
take a boy by the shoulders and shake him. He still made a naughty or
refractory lad stand with one arm stretched out for anything from ten
minutes to half an hour, and he was as violent as before with his
tongue.

No master could have been more unfitted to teach things to so shy a boy
as Philip. He had come to the school with fewer terrors than he had
when first he went to Mr. Watson’s. He knew a good many boys who had
been with him at the preparatory school. He felt more grownup, and
instinctively realised that among the larger numbers his deformity
would be less noticeable. But from the first day Mr. Gordon struck
terror in his heart; and the master, quick to discern the boys who were
frightened of him, seemed on that account to take a peculiar dislike to
him. Philip had enjoyed his work, but now he began to look upon the
hours passed in school with horror. Rather than risk an answer which
might be wrong and excite a storm of abuse from the master, he would
sit stupidly silent, and when it came towards his turn to stand up and
construe he grew sick and white with apprehension. His happy moments
were those when Mr. Perkins took the form. He was able to gratify the
passion for general knowledge which beset the headmaster; he had read
all sorts of strange books beyond his years, and often Mr. Perkins,
when a question was going round the room, would stop at Philip with a
smile that filled the boy with rapture, and say:

“Now, Carey, you tell them.”

The good marks he got on these occasions increased Mr. Gordon’s
indignation. One day it came to Philip’s turn to translate, and the
master sat there glaring at him and furiously biting his thumb. He was
in a ferocious mood. Philip began to speak in a low voice.

“Don’t mumble,” shouted the master.

Something seemed to stick in Philip’s throat.

“Go on. Go on. Go on.”

Each time the words were screamed more loudly. The effect was to drive
all he knew out of Philip’s head, and he looked at the printed page
vacantly. Mr. Gordon began to breathe heavily.

“If you don’t know why don’t you say so? Do you know it or not? Did you
hear all this construed last time or not? Why don’t you speak? Speak,
you blockhead, speak!”

The master seized the arms of his chair and grasped them as though to
prevent himself from falling upon Philip. They knew that in past days
he often used to seize boys by the throat till they almost choked. The
veins in his forehead stood out and his face grew dark and threatening.
He was a man insane.

Philip had known the passage perfectly the day before, but now he could
remember nothing.

“I don’t know it,” he gasped.

“Why don’t you know it? Let’s take the words one by one. We’ll soon see
if you don’t know it.”

Philip stood silent, very white, trembling a little, with his head bent
down on the book. The master’s breathing grew almost stertorous.

“The headmaster says you’re clever. I don’t know how he sees it.
General information.” He laughed savagely. “I don’t know what they put
you in his form for, Blockhead.”

He was pleased with the word, and he repeated it at the top of his
voice.

“Blockhead! Blockhead! Club-footed blockhead!”

That relieved him a little. He saw Philip redden suddenly. He told him
to fetch the Black Book. Philip put down his Caesar and went silently
out. The Black Book was a sombre volume in which the names of boys were
written with their misdeeds, and when a name was down three times it
meant a caning. Philip went to the headmaster’s house and knocked at
his study-door. Mr. Perkins was seated at his table.

“May I have the Black Book, please, sir.”

“There it is,” answered Mr. Perkins, indicating its place by a nod of
his head. “What have you been doing that you shouldn’t?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Mr. Perkins gave him a quick look, but without answering went on with
his work. Philip took the book and went out. When the hour was up, a
few minutes later, he brought it back.

“Let me have a look at it,” said the headmaster. “I see Mr. Gordon has
black-booked you for ‘gross impertinence.’ What was it?”

“I don’t know, sir. Mr. Gordon said I was a club-footed blockhead.”

Mr. Perkins looked at him again. He wondered whether there was sarcasm
behind the boy’s reply, but he was still much too shaken. His face was
white and his eyes had a look of terrified distress. Mr. Perkins got up
and put the book down. As he did so he took up some photographs.

“A friend of mine sent me some pictures of Athens this morning,” he
said casually. “Look here, there’s the Akropolis.”

He began explaining to Philip what he saw. The ruin grew vivid with his
words. He showed him the theatre of Dionysus and explained in what
order the people sat, and how beyond they could see the blue Aegean.
And then suddenly he said:

“I remember Mr. Gordon used to call me a gipsy counter-jumper when I
was in his form.”

And before Philip, his mind fixed on the photographs, had time to
gather the meaning of the remark, Mr. Perkins was showing him a picture
of Salamis, and with his finger, a finger of which the nail had a
little black edge to it, was pointing out how the Greek ships were
placed and how the Persian.




XVII


Philip passed the next two years with comfortable monotony. He was not
bullied more than other boys of his size; and his deformity,
withdrawing him from games, acquired for him an insignificance for
which he was grateful. He was not popular, and he was very lonely. He
spent a couple of terms with Winks in the Upper Third. Winks, with his
weary manner and his drooping eyelids, looked infinitely bored. He did
his duty, but he did it with an abstracted mind. He was kind, gentle,
and foolish. He had a great belief in the honour of boys; he felt that
the first thing to make them truthful was not to let it enter your head
for a moment that it was possible for them to lie. “Ask much,” he
quoted, “and much shall be given to you.” Life was easy in the Upper
Third. You knew exactly what lines would come to your turn to construe,
and with the crib that passed from hand to hand you could find out all
you wanted in two minutes; you could hold a Latin Grammar open on your
knees while questions were passing round; and Winks never noticed
anything odd in the fact that the same incredible mistake was to be
found in a dozen different exercises. He had no great faith in
examinations, for he noticed that boys never did so well in them as in
form: it was disappointing, but not significant. In due course they
were moved up, having learned little but a cheerful effrontery in the
distortion of truth, which was possibly of greater service to them in
after life than an ability to read Latin at sight.

Then they fell into the hands of Tar. His name was Turner; he was the
most vivacious of the old masters, a short man with an immense belly, a
black beard turning now to gray, and a swarthy skin. In his clerical
dress there was indeed something in him to suggest the tar-barrel; and
though on principle he gave five hundred lines to any boy on whose lips
he overheard his nickname, at dinner-parties in the precincts he often
made little jokes about it. He was the most worldly of the masters; he
dined out more frequently than any of the others, and the society he
kept was not so exclusively clerical. The boys looked upon him as
rather a dog. He left off his clerical attire during the holidays and
had been seen in Switzerland in gay tweeds. He liked a bottle of wine
and a good dinner, and having once been seen at the Cafe Royal with a
lady who was very probably a near relation, was thenceforward supposed
by generations of schoolboys to indulge in orgies the circumstantial
details of which pointed to an unbounded belief in human depravity.

Mr. Turner reckoned that it took him a term to lick boys into shape
after they had been in the Upper Third; and now and then he let fall a
sly hint, which showed that he knew perfectly what went on in his
colleague’s form. He took it good-humouredly. He looked upon boys as
young ruffians who were more apt to be truthful if it was quite certain
a lie would be found out, whose sense of honour was peculiar to
themselves and did not apply to dealings with masters, and who were
least likely to be troublesome when they learned that it did not pay.
He was proud of his form and as eager at fifty-five that it should do
better in examinations than any of the others as he had been when he
first came to the school. He had the choler of the obese, easily roused
and as easily calmed, and his boys soon discovered that there was much
kindliness beneath the invective with which he constantly assailed
them. He had no patience with fools, but was willing to take much
trouble with boys whom he suspected of concealing intelligence behind
their wilfulness. He was fond of inviting them to tea; and, though
vowing they never got a look in with him at the cakes and muffins, for
it was the fashion to believe that his corpulence pointed to a
voracious appetite, and his voracious appetite to tapeworms, they
accepted his invitations with real pleasure.

Philip was now more comfortable, for space was so limited that there
were only studies for boys in the upper school, and till then he had
lived in the great hall in which they all ate and in which the lower
forms did preparation in a promiscuity which was vaguely distasteful to
him. Now and then it made him restless to be with people and he wanted
urgently to be alone. He set out for solitary walks into the country.
There was a little stream, with pollards on both sides of it, that ran
through green fields, and it made him happy, he knew not why, to wander
along its banks. When he was tired he lay face-downward on the grass
and watched the eager scurrying of minnows and of tadpoles. It gave him
a peculiar satisfaction to saunter round the precincts. On the green in
the middle they practised at nets in the summer, but during the rest of
the year it was quiet: boys used to wander round sometimes arm in arm,
or a studious fellow with abstracted gaze walked slowly, repeating to
himself something he had to learn by heart. There was a colony of rooks
in the great elms, and they filled the air with melancholy cries. Along
one side lay the Cathedral with its great central tower, and Philip,
who knew as yet nothing of beauty, felt when he looked at it a
troubling delight which he could not understand. When he had a study
(it was a little square room looking on a slum, and four boys shared
it), he bought a photograph of that view of the Cathedral, and pinned
it up over his desk. And he found himself taking a new interest in what
he saw from the window of the Fourth Form room. It looked on to old
lawns, carefully tended, and fine trees with foliage dense and rich. It
gave him an odd feeling in his heart, and he did not know if it was
pain or pleasure. It was the first dawn of the aesthetic emotion. It
accompanied other changes. His voice broke. It was no longer quite
under his control, and queer sounds issued from his throat.

Then he began to go to the classes which were held in the headmaster’s
study, immediately after tea, to prepare boys for confirmation.
Philip’s piety had not stood the test of time, and he had long since
given up his nightly reading of the Bible; but now, under the influence
of Mr. Perkins, with this new condition of the body which made him so
restless, his old feelings revived, and he reproached himself bitterly
for his backsliding. The fires of Hell burned fiercely before his
mind’s eye. If he had died during that time when he was little better
than an infidel he would have been lost; he believed implicitly in pain
everlasting, he believed in it much more than in eternal happiness; and
he shuddered at the dangers he had run.

Since the day on which Mr. Perkins had spoken kindly to him, when he
was smarting under the particular form of abuse which he could least
bear, Philip had conceived for his headmaster a dog-like adoration. He
racked his brains vainly for some way to please him. He treasured the
smallest word of commendation which by chance fell from his lips. And
when he came to the quiet little meetings in his house he was prepared
to surrender himself entirely. He kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Perkins’
shining eyes, and sat with mouth half open, his head a little thrown
forward so as to miss no word. The ordinariness of the surroundings
made the matters they dealt with extraordinarily moving. And often the
master, seized himself by the wonder of his subject, would push back
the book in front of him, and with his hands clasped together over his
heart, as though to still the beating, would talk of the mysteries of
their religion. Sometimes Philip did not understand, but he did not
want to understand, he felt vaguely that it was enough to feel. It
seemed to him then that the headmaster, with his black, straggling hair
and his pale face, was like those prophets of Israel who feared not to
take kings to task; and when he thought of the Redeemer he saw Him only
with the same dark eyes and those wan cheeks.

Mr. Perkins took this part of his work with great seriousness. There
was never here any of that flashing humour which made the other masters
suspect him of flippancy. Finding time for everything in his busy day,
he was able at certain intervals to take separately for a quarter of an
hour or twenty minutes the boys whom he was preparing for confirmation.
He wanted to make them feel that this was the first consciously serious
step in their lives; he tried to grope into the depths of their souls;
he wanted to instil in them his own vehement devotion. In Philip,
notwithstanding his shyness, he felt the possibility of a passion equal
to his own. The boy’s temperament seemed to him essentially religious.
One day he broke off suddenly from the subject on which he had been
talking.

“Have you thought at all what you’re going to be when you grow up?” he
asked.

“My uncle wants me to be ordained,” said Philip.

“And you?”

Philip looked away. He was ashamed to answer that he felt himself
unworthy.

“I don’t know any life that’s so full of happiness as ours. I wish I
could make you feel what a wonderful privilege it is. One can serve God
in every walk, but we stand nearer to Him. I don’t want to influence
you, but if you made up your mind—oh, at once—you couldn’t help feeling
that joy and relief which never desert one again.”

Philip did not answer, but the headmaster read in his eyes that he
realised already something of what he tried to indicate.

“If you go on as you are now you’ll find yourself head of the school
one of these days, and you ought to be pretty safe for a scholarship
when you leave. Have you got anything of your own?”

“My uncle says I shall have a hundred a year when I’m twenty-one.”

“You’ll be rich. I had nothing.”

The headmaster hesitated a moment, and then, idly drawing lines with a
pencil on the blotting paper in front of him, went on.

“I’m afraid your choice of professions will be rather limited. You
naturally couldn’t go in for anything that required physical activity.”

Philip reddened to the roots of his hair, as he always did when any
reference was made to his club-foot. Mr. Perkins looked at him gravely.

“I wonder if you’re not oversensitive about your misfortune. Has it
ever struck you to thank God for it?”

Philip looked up quickly. His lips tightened. He remembered how for
months, trusting in what they told him, he had implored God to heal him
as He had healed the Leper and made the Blind to see.

“As long as you accept it rebelliously it can only cause you shame. But
if you looked upon it as a cross that was given you to bear only
because your shoulders were strong enough to bear it, a sign of God’s
favour, then it would be a source of happiness to you instead of
misery.”

He saw that the boy hated to discuss the matter and he let him go.

But Philip thought over all that the headmaster had said, and
presently, his mind taken up entirely with the ceremony that was before
him, a mystical rapture seized him. His spirit seemed to free itself
from the bonds of the flesh and he seemed to be living a new life. He
aspired to perfection with all the passion that was in him. He wanted
to surrender himself entirely to the service of God, and he made up his
mind definitely that he would be ordained. When the great day arrived,
his soul deeply moved by all the preparation, by the books he had
studied and above all by the overwhelming influence of the head, he
could hardly contain himself for fear and joy. One thought had
tormented him. He knew that he would have to walk alone through the
chancel, and he dreaded showing his limp thus obviously, not only to
the whole school, who were attending the service, but also to the
strangers, people from the city or parents who had come to see their
sons confirmed. But when the time came he felt suddenly that he could
accept the humiliation joyfully; and as he limped up the chancel, very
small and insignificant beneath the lofty vaulting of the Cathedral, he
offered consciously his deformity as a sacrifice to the God who loved
him.




XVIII


But Philip could not live long in the rarefied air of the hilltops.
What had happened to him when first he was seized by the religious
emotion happened to him now. Because he felt so keenly the beauty of
faith, because the desire for self-sacrifice burned in his heart with
such a gem-like glow, his strength seemed inadequate to his ambition.
He was tired out by the violence of his passion. His soul was filled on
a sudden with a singular aridity. He began to forget the presence of
God which had seemed so surrounding; and his religious exercises, still
very punctually performed, grew merely formal. At first he blamed
himself for this falling away, and the fear of hell-fire urged him to
renewed vehemence; but the passion was dead, and gradually other
interests distracted his thoughts.

Philip had few friends. His habit of reading isolated him: it became
such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and
restless; he was vain of the wider knowledge he had acquired from the
perusal of so many books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill
to hide his contempt for his companions’ stupidity. They complained
that he was conceited; and, since he excelled only in matters which to
them were unimportant, they asked satirically what he had to be
conceited about. He was developing a sense of humour, and found that he
had a knack of saying bitter things, which caught people on the raw; he
said them because they amused him, hardly realising how much they hurt,
and was much offended when he found that his victims regarded him with
active dislike. The humiliations he suffered when first he went to
school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows which he could
never entirely overcome; he remained shy and silent. But though he did
everything to alienate the sympathy of other boys he longed with all
his heart for the popularity which to some was so easily accorded.
These from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though he was
inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with others, though he
made little jokes at their expense, he would have given anything to
change places with them. Indeed he would gladly have changed places
with the dullest boy in the school who was whole of limb. He took to a
singular habit. He would imagine that he was some boy whom he had a
particular fancy for; he would throw his soul, as it were, into the
other’s body, talk with his voice and laugh with his heart; he would
imagine himself doing all the things the other did. It was so vivid
that he seemed for a moment really to be no longer himself. In this way
he enjoyed many intervals of fantastic happiness.

At the beginning of the Christmas term which followed on his
confirmation Philip found himself moved into another study. One of the
boys who shared it was called Rose. He was in the same form as Philip,
and Philip had always looked upon him with envious admiration. He was
not good-looking; though his large hands and big bones suggested that
he would be a tall man, he was clumsily made; but his eyes were
charming, and when he laughed (he was constantly laughing) his face
wrinkled all round them in a jolly way. He was neither clever nor
stupid, but good enough at his work and better at games. He was a
favourite with masters and boys, and he in his turn liked everyone.

When Philip was put in the study he could not help seeing that the
others, who had been together for three terms, welcomed him coldly. It
made him nervous to feel himself an intruder; but he had learned to
hide his feelings, and they found him quiet and unobtrusive. With Rose,
because he was as little able as anyone else to resist his charm,
Philip was even more than usually shy and abrupt; and whether on
account of this, unconsciously bent upon exerting the fascination he
knew was his only by the results, or whether from sheer kindness of
heart, it was Rose who first took Philip into the circle. One day,
quite suddenly, he asked Philip if he would walk to the football field
with him. Philip flushed.

“I can’t walk fast enough for you,” he said.

“Rot. Come on.”

And just before they were setting out some boy put his head in the
study-door and asked Rose to go with him.

“I can’t,” he answered. “I’ve already promised Carey.”

“Don’t bother about me,” said Philip quickly. “I shan’t mind.”

“Rot,” said Rose.

He looked at Philip with those good-natured eyes of his and laughed.
Philip felt a curious tremor in his heart.

In a little while, their friendship growing with boyish rapidity, the
pair were inseparable. Other fellows wondered at the sudden intimacy,
and Rose was asked what he saw in Philip.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “He’s not half a bad chap really.”

Soon they grew accustomed to the two walking into chapel arm in arm or
strolling round the precincts in conversation; wherever one was the
other could be found also, and, as though acknowledging his
proprietorship, boys who wanted Rose would leave messages with Carey.
Philip at first was reserved. He would not let himself yield entirely
to the proud joy that filled him; but presently his distrust of the
fates gave way before a wild happiness. He thought Rose the most
wonderful fellow he had ever seen. His books now were insignificant; he
could not bother about them when there was something infinitely more
important to occupy him. Rose’s friends used to come in to tea in the
study sometimes or sit about when there was nothing better to do—Rose
liked a crowd and the chance of a rag—and they found that Philip was
quite a decent fellow. Philip was happy.

When the last day of term came he and Rose arranged by which train they
should come back, so that they might meet at the station and have tea
in the town before returning to school. Philip went home with a heavy
heart. He thought of Rose all through the holidays, and his fancy was
active with the things they would do together next term. He was bored
at the vicarage, and when on the last day his uncle put him the usual
question in the usual facetious tone:

“Well, are you glad to be going back to school?”

Philip answered joyfully.

“Rather.”

In order to be sure of meeting Rose at the station he took an earlier
train than he usually did, and he waited about the platform for an
hour. When the train came in from Faversham, where he knew Rose had to
change, he ran along it excitedly. But Rose was not there. He got a
porter to tell him when another train was due, and he waited; but again
he was disappointed; and he was cold and hungry, so he walked, through
side-streets and slums, by a short cut to the school. He found Rose in
the study, with his feet on the chimney-piece, talking eighteen to the
dozen with half a dozen boys who were sitting on whatever there was to
sit on. He shook hands with Philip enthusiastically, but Philip’s face
fell, for he realised that Rose had forgotten all about their
appointment.

“I say, why are you so late?” said Rose. “I thought you were never
coming.”

“You were at the station at half-past four,” said another boy. “I saw
you when I came.”

Philip blushed a little. He did not want Rose to know that he had been
such a fool as to wait for him.

“I had to see about a friend of my people’s,” he invented readily. “I
was asked to see her off.”

But his disappointment made him a little sulky. He sat in silence, and
when spoken to answered in monosyllables. He was making up his mind to
have it out with Rose when they were alone. But when the others had
gone Rose at once came over and sat on the arm of the chair in which
Philip was lounging.

“I say, I’m jolly glad we’re in the same study this term. Ripping,
isn’t it?”

He seemed so genuinely pleased to see Philip that Philip’s annoyance
vanished. They began as if they had not been separated for five minutes
to talk eagerly of the thousand things that interested them.




XIX


At first Philip had been too grateful for Rose’s friendship to make any
demands on him. He took things as they came and enjoyed life. But
presently he began to resent Rose’s universal amiability; he wanted a
more exclusive attachment, and he claimed as a right what before he had
accepted as a favour. He watched jealously Rose’s companionship with
others; and though he knew it was unreasonable could not help sometimes
saying bitter things to him. If Rose spent an hour playing the fool in
another study, Philip would receive him when he returned to his own
with a sullen frown. He would sulk for a day, and he suffered more
because Rose either did not notice his ill-humour or deliberately
ignored it. Not seldom Philip, knowing all the time how stupid he was,
would force a quarrel, and they would not speak to one another for a
couple of days. But Philip could not bear to be angry with him long,
and even when convinced that he was in the right, would apologise
humbly. Then for a week they would be as great friends as ever. But the
best was over, and Philip could see that Rose often walked with him
merely from old habit or from fear of his anger; they had not so much
to say to one another as at first, and Rose was often bored. Philip
felt that his lameness began to irritate him.

Towards the end of the term two or three boys caught scarlet fever, and
there was much talk of sending them all home in order to escape an
epidemic; but the sufferers were isolated, and since no more were
attacked it was supposed that the outbreak was stopped. One of the
stricken was Philip. He remained in hospital through the Easter
holidays, and at the beginning of the summer term was sent home to the
vicarage to get a little fresh air. The Vicar, notwithstanding medical
assurance that the boy was no longer infectious, received him with
suspicion; he thought it very inconsiderate of the doctor to suggest
that his nephew’s convalescence should be spent by the seaside, and
consented to have him in the house only because there was nowhere else
he could go.

Philip went back to school at half-term. He had forgotten the quarrels
he had had with Rose, but remembered only that he was his greatest
friend. He knew that he had been silly. He made up his mind to be more
reasonable. During his illness Rose had sent him in a couple of little
notes, and he had ended each with the words: “Hurry up and come back.”
Philip thought Rose must be looking forward as much to his return as he
was himself to seeing Rose.

He found that owing to the death from scarlet fever of one of the boys
in the Sixth there had been some shifting in the studies and Rose was
no longer in his. It was a bitter disappointment. But as soon as he
arrived he burst into Rose’s study. Rose was sitting at his desk,
working with a boy called Hunter, and turned round crossly as Philip
came in.

“Who the devil’s that?” he cried. And then, seeing Philip: “Oh, it’s
you.”

Philip stopped in embarrassment.

“I thought I’d come in and see how you were.”

“We were just working.”

Hunter broke into the conversation.

“When did you get back?”

“Five minutes ago.”

They sat and looked at him as though he was disturbing them. They
evidently expected him to go quickly. Philip reddened.

“I’ll be off. You might look in when you’ve done,” he said to Rose.

“All right.”

Philip closed the door behind him and limped back to his own study. He
felt frightfully hurt. Rose, far from seeming glad to see him, had
looked almost put out. They might never have been more than
acquaintances. Though he waited in his study, not leaving it for a
moment in case just then Rose should come, his friend never appeared;
and next morning when he went in to prayers he saw Rose and Hunter
singing along arm in arm. What he could not see for himself others told
him. He had forgotten that three months is a long time in a schoolboy’s
life, and though he had passed them in solitude Rose had lived in the
world. Hunter had stepped into the vacant place. Philip found that Rose
was quietly avoiding him. But he was not the boy to accept a situation
without putting it into words; he waited till he was sure Rose was
alone in his study and went in.

“May I come in?” he asked.

Rose looked at him with an embarrassment that made him angry with
Philip.

“Yes, if you want to.”

“It’s very kind of you,” said Philip sarcastically.

“What d’you want?”

“I say, why have you been so rotten since I came back?”

“Oh, don’t be an ass,” said Rose.

“I don’t know what you see in Hunter.”

“That’s my business.”

Philip looked down. He could not bring himself to say what was in his
heart. He was afraid of humiliating himself. Rose got up.

“I’ve got to go to the Gym,” he said.

When he was at the door Philip forced himself to speak.

“I say, Rose, don’t be a perfect beast.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

Rose slammed the door behind him and left Philip alone. Philip shivered
with rage. He went back to his study and turned the conversation over
in his mind. He hated Rose now, he wanted to hurt him, he thought of
biting things he might have said to him. He brooded over the end to
their friendship and fancied that others were talking of it. In his
sensitiveness he saw sneers and wonderings in other fellows’ manner
when they were not bothering their heads with him at all. He imagined
to himself what they were saying.

“After all, it wasn’t likely to last long. I wonder he ever stuck Carey
at all. Blighter!”

To show his indifference he struck up a violent friendship with a boy
called Sharp whom he hated and despised. He was a London boy, with a
loutish air, a heavy fellow with the beginnings of a moustache on his
lip and bushy eyebrows that joined one another across the bridge of his
nose. He had soft hands and manners too suave for his years. He spoke
with the suspicion of a cockney accent. He was one of those boys who
are too slack to play games, and he exercised great ingenuity in making
excuses to avoid such as were compulsory. He was regarded by boys and
masters with a vague dislike, and it was from arrogance that Philip now
sought his society. Sharp in a couple of terms was going to Germany for
a year. He hated school, which he looked upon as an indignity to be
endured till he was old enough to go out into the world. London was all
he cared for, and he had many stories to tell of his doings there
during the holidays. From his conversation—he spoke in a soft,
deep-toned voice—there emerged the vague rumour of the London streets
by night. Philip listened to him at once fascinated and repelled. With
his vivid fancy he seemed to see the surging throng round the pit-door
of theatres, and the glitter of cheap restaurants, bars where men, half
drunk, sat on high stools talking with barmaids; and under the street
lamps the mysterious passing of dark crowds bent upon pleasure. Sharp
lent him cheap novels from Holywell Row, which Philip read in his
cubicle with a sort of wonderful fear.

Once Rose tried to effect a reconciliation. He was a good-natured
fellow, who did not like having enemies.

“I say, Carey, why are you being such a silly ass? It doesn’t do you
any good cutting me and all that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” answered Philip.

“Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t talk.”

“You bore me,” said Philip.

“Please yourself.”

Rose shrugged his shoulders and left him. Philip was very white, as he
always became when he was moved, and his heart beat violently. When
Rose went away he felt suddenly sick with misery. He did not know why
he had answered in that fashion. He would have given anything to be
friends with Rose. He hated to have quarrelled with him, and now that
he saw he had given him pain he was very sorry. But at the moment he
had not been master of himself. It seemed that some devil had seized
him, forcing him to say bitter things against his will, even though at
the time he wanted to shake hands with Rose and meet him more than
halfway. The desire to wound had been too strong for him. He had wanted
to revenge himself for the pain and the humiliation he had endured. It
was pride: it was folly too, for he knew that Rose would not care at
all, while he would suffer bitterly. The thought came to him that he
would go to Rose, and say:

“I say, I’m sorry I was such a beast. I couldn’t help it. Let’s make it
up.”

But he knew he would never be able to do it. He was afraid that Rose
would sneer at him. He was angry with himself, and when Sharp came in a
little while afterwards he seized upon the first opportunity to quarrel
with him. Philip had a fiendish instinct for discovering other people’s
raw spots, and was able to say things that rankled because they were
true. But Sharp had the last word.

“I heard Rose talking about you to Mellor just now,” he said. “Mellor
said: Why didn’t you kick him? It would teach him manners. And Rose
said: I didn’t like to. Damned cripple.”

Philip suddenly became scarlet. He could not answer, for there was a
lump in his throat that almost choked him.




XX


Philip was moved into the Sixth, but he hated school now with all his
heart, and, having lost his ambition, cared nothing whether he did ill
or well. He awoke in the morning with a sinking heart because he must
go through another day of drudgery. He was tired of having to do things
because he was told; and the restrictions irked him, not because they
were unreasonable, but because they were restrictions. He yearned for
freedom. He was weary of repeating things that he knew already and of
the hammering away, for the sake of a thick-witted fellow, at something
that he understood from the beginning.

With Mr. Perkins you could work or not as you chose. He was at once
eager and abstracted. The Sixth Form room was in a part of the old
abbey which had been restored, and it had a gothic window: Philip tried
to cheat his boredom by drawing this over and over again; and sometimes
out of his head he drew the great tower of the Cathedral or the gateway
that led into the precincts. He had a knack for drawing. Aunt Louisa
during her youth had painted in water colours, and she had several
albums filled with sketches of churches, old bridges, and picturesque
cottages. They were often shown at the vicarage tea-parties. She had
once given Philip a paint-box as a Christmas present, and he had
started by copying her pictures. He copied them better than anyone
could have expected, and presently he did little pictures of his own.
Mrs. Carey encouraged him. It was a good way to keep him out of
mischief, and later on his sketches would be useful for bazaars. Two or
three of them had been framed and hung in his bed-room.

But one day, at the end of the morning’s work, Mr. Perkins stopped him
as he was lounging out of the form-room.

“I want to speak to you, Carey.”

Philip waited. Mr. Perkins ran his lean fingers through his beard and
looked at Philip. He seemed to be thinking over what he wanted to say.

“What’s the matter with you, Carey?” he said abruptly.

Philip, flushing, looked at him quickly. But knowing him well by now,
without answering, he waited for him to go on.

“I’ve been dissatisfied with you lately. You’ve been slack and
inattentive. You seem to take no interest in your work. It’s been
slovenly and bad.”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” said Philip.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

Philip looked down sulkily. How could he answer that he was bored to
death?

“You know, this term you’ll go down instead of up. I shan’t give you a
very good report.”

Philip wondered what he would say if he knew how the report was
treated. It arrived at breakfast, Mr. Carey glanced at it
indifferently, and passed it over to Philip.

“There’s your report. You’d better see what it says,” he remarked, as
he ran his fingers through the wrapper of a catalogue of second-hand
books.

Philip read it.

“Is it good?” asked Aunt Louisa.

“Not so good as I deserve,” answered Philip, with a smile, giving it to
her.

“I’ll read it afterwards when I’ve got my spectacles,” she said.

But after breakfast Mary Ann came in to say the butcher was there, and
she generally forgot.

Mr. Perkins went on.

“I’m disappointed with you. And I can’t understand. I know you can do
things if you want to, but you don’t seem to want to any more. I was
going to make you a monitor next term, but I think I’d better wait a
bit.”

Philip flushed. He did not like the thought of being passed over. He
tightened his lips.

“And there’s something else. You must begin thinking of your
scholarship now. You won’t get anything unless you start working very
seriously.”

Philip was irritated by the lecture. He was angry with the headmaster,
and angry with himself.

“I don’t think I’m going up to Oxford,” he said.

“Why not? I thought your idea was to be ordained.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Why?”

Philip did not answer. Mr. Perkins, holding himself oddly as he always
did, like a figure in one of Perugino’s pictures, drew his fingers
thoughtfully through his beard. He looked at Philip as though he were
trying to understand and then abruptly told him he might go.

Apparently he was not satisfied, for one evening, a week later, when
Philip had to go into his study with some papers, he resumed the
conversation; but this time he adopted a different method: he spoke to
Philip not as a schoolmaster with a boy but as one human being with
another. He did not seem to care now that Philip’s work was poor, that
he ran small chance against keen rivals of carrying off the scholarship
necessary for him to go to Oxford: the important matter was his changed
intention about his life afterwards. Mr. Perkins set himself to revive
his eagerness to be ordained. With infinite skill he worked on his
feelings, and this was easier since he was himself genuinely moved.
Philip’s change of mind caused him bitter distress, and he really
thought he was throwing away his chance of happiness in life for he
knew not what. His voice was very persuasive. And Philip, easily moved
by the emotion of others, very emotional himself notwithstanding a
placid exterior—his face, partly by nature but also from the habit of
all these years at school, seldom except by his quick flushing showed
what he felt—Philip was deeply touched by what the master said. He was
very grateful to him for the interest he showed, and he was
conscience-stricken by the grief which he felt his behaviour caused
him. It was subtly flattering to know that with the whole school to
think about Mr. Perkins should trouble with him, but at the same time
something else in him, like another person standing at his elbow, clung
desperately to two words.

“I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.”

He felt himself slipping. He was powerless against the weakness that
seemed to well up in him; it was like the water that rises up in an
empty bottle held over a full basin; and he set his teeth, saying the
words over and over to himself.

“I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.”

At last Mr. Perkins put his hand on Philip’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to influence you,” he said. “You must decide for
yourself. Pray to Almighty God for help and guidance.”

When Philip came out of the headmaster’s house there was a light rain
falling. He went under the archway that led to the precincts, there was
not a soul there, and the rooks were silent in the elms. He walked
round slowly. He felt hot, and the rain did him good. He thought over
all that Mr. Perkins had said, calmly now that he was withdrawn from
the fervour of his personality, and he was thankful he had not given
way.

In the darkness he could but vaguely see the great mass of the
Cathedral: he hated it now because of the irksomeness of the long
services which he was forced to attend. The anthem was interminable,
and you had to stand drearily while it was being sung; you could not
hear the droning sermon, and your body twitched because you had to sit
still when you wanted to move about. Then Philip thought of the two
services every Sunday at Blackstable. The church was bare and cold, and
there was a smell all about one of pomade and starched clothes. The
curate preached once and his uncle preached once. As he grew up he had
learned to know his uncle; Philip was downright and intolerant, and he
could not understand that a man might sincerely say things as a
clergyman which he never acted up to as a man. The deception outraged
him. His uncle was a weak and selfish man, whose chief desire it was to
be saved trouble.

Mr. Perkins had spoken to him of the beauty of a life dedicated to the
service of God. Philip knew what sort of lives the clergy led in the
corner of East Anglia which was his home. There was the Vicar of
Whitestone, a parish a little way from Blackstable: he was a bachelor
and to give himself something to do had lately taken up farming: the
local paper constantly reported the cases he had in the county court
against this one and that, labourers he would not pay their wages to or
tradesmen whom he accused of cheating him; scandal said he starved his
cows, and there was much talk about some general action which should be
taken against him. Then there was the Vicar of Ferne, a bearded, fine
figure of a man: his wife had been forced to leave him because of his
cruelty, and she had filled the neighbourhood with stories of his
immorality. The Vicar of Surle, a tiny hamlet by the sea, was to be
seen every evening in the public house a stone’s throw from his
vicarage; and the churchwardens had been to Mr. Carey to ask his
advice. There was not a soul for any of them to talk to except small
farmers or fishermen; there were long winter evenings when the wind
blew, whistling drearily through the leafless trees, and all around
they saw nothing but the bare monotony of ploughed fields; and there
was poverty, and there was lack of any work that seemed to matter;
every kink in their characters had free play; there was nothing to
restrain them; they grew narrow and eccentric: Philip knew all this,
but in his young intolerance he did not offer it as an excuse. He
shivered at the thought of leading such a life; he wanted to get out
into the world.




XXI


Mr. Perkins soon saw that his words had had no effect on Philip, and
for the rest of the term ignored him. He wrote a report which was
vitriolic. When it arrived and Aunt Louisa asked Philip what it was
like, he answered cheerfully.

“Rotten.”

“Is it?” said the Vicar. “I must look at it again.”

“Do you think there’s any use in my staying on at Tercanbury? I should
have thought it would be better if I went to Germany for a bit.”

“What has put that in your head?” said Aunt Louisa.

“Don’t you think it’s rather a good idea?”

Sharp had already left King’s School and had written to Philip from
Hanover. He was really starting life, and it made Philip more restless
to think of it. He felt he could not bear another year of restraint.

“But then you wouldn’t get a scholarship.”

“I haven’t a chance of getting one anyhow. And besides, I don’t know
that I particularly want to go to Oxford.”

“But if you’re going to be ordained, Philip?” Aunt Louisa exclaimed in
dismay.

“I’ve given up that idea long ago.”

Mrs. Carey looked at him with startled eyes, and then, used to
self-restraint, she poured out another cup of tea for his uncle. They
did not speak. In a moment Philip saw tears slowly falling down her
cheeks. His heart was suddenly wrung because he caused her pain. In her
tight black dress, made by the dressmaker down the street, with her
wrinkled face and pale tired eyes, her gray hair still done in the
frivolous ringlets of her youth, she was a ridiculous but strangely
pathetic figure. Philip saw it for the first time.

Afterwards, when the Vicar was shut up in his study with the curate, he
put his arms round her waist.

“I say, I’m sorry you’re upset, Aunt Louisa,” he said. “But it’s no
good my being ordained if I haven’t a real vocation, is it?”

“I’m so disappointed, Philip,” she moaned. “I’d set my heart on it. I
thought you could be your uncle’s curate, and then when our time
came—after all, we can’t last for ever, can we?—you might have taken
his place.”

Philip shivered. He was seized with panic. His heart beat like a pigeon
in a trap beating with its wings. His aunt wept softly, her head upon
his shoulder.

“I wish you’d persuade Uncle William to let me leave Tercanbury. I’m so
sick of it.”

But the Vicar of Blackstable did not easily alter any arrangements he
had made, and it had always been intended that Philip should stay at
King’s School till he was eighteen, and should then go to Oxford. At
all events he would not hear of Philip leaving then, for no notice had
been given and the term’s fee would have to be paid in any case.

“Then will you give notice for me to leave at Christmas?” said Philip,
at the end of a long and often bitter conversation.

“I’ll write to Mr. Perkins about it and see what he says.”

“Oh, I wish to goodness I were twenty-one. It is awful to be at
somebody else’s beck and call.”

“Philip, you shouldn’t speak to your uncle like that,” said Mrs. Carey
gently.

“But don’t you see that Perkins will want me to stay? He gets so much a
head for every chap in the school.”

“Why don’t you want to go to Oxford?”

“What’s the good if I’m not going into the Church?”

“You can’t go into the Church: you’re in the Church already,” said the
Vicar.

“Ordained then,” replied Philip impatiently.

“What are you going to be, Philip?” asked Mrs. Carey.

“I don’t know. I’ve not made up my mind. But whatever I am, it’ll be
useful to know foreign languages. I shall get far more out of a year in
Germany than by staying on at that hole.”

He would not say that he felt Oxford would be little better than a
continuation of his life at school. He wished immensely to be his own
master. Besides he would be known to a certain extent among old
schoolfellows, and he wanted to get away from them all. He felt that
his life at school had been a failure. He wanted to start fresh.

It happened that his desire to go to Germany fell in with certain ideas
which had been of late discussed at Blackstable. Sometimes friends came
to stay with the doctor and brought news of the world outside; and the
visitors spending August by the sea had their own way of looking at
things. The Vicar had heard that there were people who did not think
the old-fashioned education so useful nowadays as it had been in the
past, and modern languages were gaining an importance which they had
not had in his own youth. His own mind was divided, for a younger
brother of his had been sent to Germany when he failed in some
examination, thus creating a precedent but since he had there died of
typhoid it was impossible to look upon the experiment as other than
dangerous. The result of innumerable conversations was that Philip
should go back to Tercanbury for another term, and then should leave.
With this agreement Philip was not dissatisfied. But when he had been
back a few days the headmaster spoke to him.

“I’ve had a letter from your uncle. It appears you want to go to
Germany, and he asks me what I think about it.”

Philip was astounded. He was furious with his guardian for going back
on his word.

“I thought it was settled, sir,” he said.

“Far from it. I’ve written to say I think it the greatest mistake to
take you away.”

Philip immediately sat down and wrote a violent letter to his uncle. He
did not measure his language. He was so angry that he could not get to
sleep till quite late that night, and he awoke in the early morning and
began brooding over the way they had treated him. He waited impatiently
for an answer. In two or three days it came. It was a mild, pained
letter from Aunt Louisa, saying that he should not write such things to
his uncle, who was very much distressed. He was unkind and unchristian.
He must know they were only trying to do their best for him, and they
were so much older than he that they must be better judges of what was
good for him. Philip clenched his hands. He had heard that statement so
often, and he could not see why it was true; they did not know the
conditions as he did, why should they accept it as self-evident that
their greater age gave them greater wisdom? The letter ended with the
information that Mr. Carey had withdrawn the notice he had given.

Philip nursed his wrath till the next half-holiday. They had them on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, since on Saturday afternoons they had to go to
a service in the Cathedral. He stopped behind when the rest of the
Sixth went out.

“May I go to Blackstable this afternoon, please, sir?” he asked.

“No,” said the headmaster briefly.

“I wanted to see my uncle about something very important.”

“Didn’t you hear me say no?”

Philip did not answer. He went out. He felt almost sick with
humiliation, the humiliation of having to ask and the humiliation of
the curt refusal. He hated the headmaster now. Philip writhed under
that despotism which never vouchsafed a reason for the most tyrannous
act. He was too angry to care what he did, and after dinner walked down
to the station, by the back ways he knew so well, just in time to catch
the train to Blackstable. He walked into the vicarage and found his
uncle and aunt sitting in the dining-room.

“Hulloa, where have you sprung from?” said the Vicar.

It was very clear that he was not pleased to see him. He looked a
little uneasy.

“I thought I’d come and see you about my leaving. I want to know what
you mean by promising me one thing when I was here, and doing something
different a week after.”

He was a little frightened at his own boldness, but he had made up his
mind exactly what words to use, and, though his heart beat violently,
he forced himself to say them.

“Have you got leave to come here this afternoon?”

“No. I asked Perkins and he refused. If you like to write and tell him
I’ve been here you can get me into a really fine old row.”

Mrs. Carey sat knitting with trembling hands. She was unused to scenes
and they agitated her extremely.

“It would serve you right if I told him,” said Mr. Carey.

“If you like to be a perfect sneak you can. After writing to Perkins as
you did you’re quite capable of it.”

It was foolish of Philip to say that, because it gave the Vicar exactly
the opportunity he wanted.

“I’m not going to sit still while you say impertinent things to me,” he
said with dignity.

He got up and walked quickly out of the room into his study. Philip
heard him shut the door and lock it.

“Oh, I wish to God I were twenty-one. It is awful to be tied down like
this.”

Aunt Louisa began to cry quietly.

“Oh, Philip, you oughtn’t to have spoken to your uncle like that. Do
please go and tell him you’re sorry.”

“I’m not in the least sorry. He’s taking a mean advantage. Of course
it’s just waste of money keeping me on at school, but what does he
care? It’s not his money. It was cruel to put me under the guardianship
of people who know nothing about things.”

“Philip.”

Philip in his voluble anger stopped suddenly at the sound of her voice.
It was heart-broken. He had not realised what bitter things he was
saying.

“Philip, how can you be so unkind? You know we are only trying to do
our best for you, and we know that we have no experience; it isn’t as
if we’d had any children of our own: that’s why we consulted Mr.
Perkins.” Her voice broke. “I’ve tried to be like a mother to you. I’ve
loved you as if you were my own son.”

She was so small and frail, there was something so pathetic in her
old-maidish air, that Philip was touched. A great lump came suddenly in
his throat and his eyes filled with tears.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be beastly.”

He knelt down beside her and took her in his arms, and kissed her wet,
withered cheeks. She sobbed bitterly, and he seemed to feel on a sudden
the pity of that wasted life. She had never surrendered herself before
to such a display of emotion.

“I know I’ve not been what I wanted to be to you, Philip, but I didn’t
know how. It’s been just as dreadful for me to have no children as for
you to have no mother.”

Philip forgot his anger and his own concerns, but thought only of
consoling her, with broken words and clumsy little caresses. Then the
clock struck, and he had to bolt off at once to catch the only train
that would get him back to Tercanbury in time for call-over. As he sat
in the corner of the railway carriage he saw that he had done nothing.
He was angry with himself for his weakness. It was despicable to have
allowed himself to be turned from his purpose by the pompous airs of
the Vicar and the tears of his aunt. But as the result of he knew not
what conversations between the couple another letter was written to the
headmaster. Mr. Perkins read it with an impatient shrug of the
shoulders. He showed it to Philip. It ran:

Dear Mr. Perkins,

Forgive me for troubling you again about my ward, but both his Aunt and
I have been uneasy about him. He seems very anxious to leave school,
and his Aunt thinks he is unhappy. It is very difficult for us to know
what to do as we are not his parents. He does not seem to think he is
doing very well and he feels it is wasting his money to stay on. I
should be very much obliged if you would have a talk to him, and if he
is still of the same mind perhaps it would be better if he left at
Christmas as I originally intended.

Yours very truly,
  William Carey.

Philip gave him back the letter. He felt a thrill of pride in his
triumph. He had got his own way, and he was satisfied. His will had
gained a victory over the wills of others.

“It’s not much good my spending half an hour writing to your uncle if
he changes his mind the next letter he gets from you,” said the
headmaster irritably.

Philip said nothing, and his face was perfectly placid; but he could
not prevent the twinkle in his eyes. Mr. Perkins noticed it and broke
into a little laugh.

“You’ve rather scored, haven’t you?” he said.

Then Philip smiled outright. He could not conceal his exultation.

“Is it true that you’re very anxious to leave?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you unhappy here?”

Philip blushed. He hated instinctively any attempt to get into the
depths of his feelings.

“Oh, I don’t know, sir.”

Mr. Perkins, slowly dragging his fingers through his beard, looked at
him thoughtfully. He seemed to speak almost to himself.

“Of course schools are made for the average. The holes are all round,
and whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. One hasn’t
time to bother about anything but the average.” Then suddenly he
addressed himself to Philip: “Look here, I’ve got a suggestion to make
to you. It’s getting on towards the end of the term now. Another term
won’t kill you, and if you want to go to Germany you’d better go after
Easter than after Christmas. It’ll be much pleasanter in the spring
than in midwinter. If at the end of the next term you still want to go
I’ll make no objection. What d’you say to that?”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

Philip was so glad to have gained the last three months that he did not
mind the extra term. The school seemed less of a prison when he knew
that before Easter he would be free from it for ever. His heart danced
within him. That evening in chapel he looked round at the boys,
standing according to their forms, each in his due place, and he
chuckled with satisfaction at the thought that soon he would never see
them again. It made him regard them almost with a friendly feeling. His
eyes rested on Rose. Rose took his position as a monitor very
seriously: he had quite an idea of being a good influence in the
school; it was his turn to read the lesson that evening, and he read it
very well. Philip smiled when he thought that he would be rid of him
for ever, and it would not matter in six months whether Rose was tall
and straight-limbed; and where would the importance be that he was a
monitor and captain of the eleven? Philip looked at the masters in
their gowns. Gordon was dead, he had died of apoplexy two years before,
but all the rest were there. Philip knew now what a poor lot they were,
except Turner perhaps, there was something of a man in him; and he
writhed at the thought of the subjection in which they had held him. In
six months they would not matter either. Their praise would mean
nothing to him, and he would shrug his shoulders at their censure.

Philip had learned not to express his emotions by outward signs, and
shyness still tormented him, but he had often very high spirits; and
then, though he limped about demurely, silent and reserved, it seemed
to be hallooing in his heart. He seemed to himself to walk more
lightly. All sorts of ideas danced through his head, fancies chased one
another so furiously that he could not catch them; but their coming and
their going filled him with exhilaration. Now, being happy, he was able
to work, and during the remaining weeks of the term set himself to make
up for his long neglect. His brain worked easily, and he took a keen
pleasure in the activity of his intellect. He did very well in the
examinations that closed the term. Mr. Perkins made only one remark: he
was talking to him about an essay he had written, and, after the usual
criticisms, said:

“So you’ve made up your mind to stop playing the fool for a bit, have
you?”

He smiled at him with his shining teeth, and Philip, looking down, gave
an embarrassed smile.

The half dozen boys who expected to divide between them the various
prizes which were given at the end of the summer term had ceased to
look upon Philip as a serious rival, but now they began to regard him
with some uneasiness. He told no one that he was leaving at Easter and
so was in no sense a competitor, but left them to their anxieties. He
knew that Rose flattered himself on his French, for he had spent two or
three holidays in France; and he expected to get the Dean’s Prize for
English essay; Philip got a good deal of satisfaction in watching his
dismay when he saw how much better Philip was doing in these subjects
than himself. Another fellow, Norton, could not go to Oxford unless he
got one of the scholarships at the disposal of the school. He asked
Philip if he was going in for them.

“Have you any objection?” asked Philip.

It entertained him to think that he held someone else’s future in his
hand. There was something romantic in getting these various rewards
actually in his grasp, and then leaving them to others because he
disdained them. At last the breaking-up day came, and he went to Mr.
Perkins to bid him good-bye.

“You don’t mean to say you really want to leave?”

 Philip’s face fell at the headmaster’s evident surprise.

“You said you wouldn’t put any objection in the way, sir,” he answered.

“I thought it was only a whim that I’d better humour. I know you’re
obstinate and headstrong. What on earth d’you want to leave for now?
You’ve only got another term in any case. You can get the Magdalen
scholarship easily; you’ll get half the prizes we’ve got to give.”

Philip looked at him sullenly. He felt that he had been tricked; but he
had the promise, and Perkins would have to stand by it.

“You’ll have a very pleasant time at Oxford. You needn’t decide at once
what you’re going to do afterwards. I wonder if you realise how
delightful the life is up there for anyone who has brains.”

“I’ve made all my arrangements now to go to Germany, sir,” said Philip.

“Are they arrangements that couldn’t possibly be altered?” asked Mr.
Perkins, with his quizzical smile. “I shall be very sorry to lose you.
In schools the rather stupid boys who work always do better than the
clever boy who’s idle, but when the clever boy works—why then, he does
what you’ve done this term.”

Philip flushed darkly. He was unused to compliments, and no one had
ever told him he was clever. The headmaster put his hand on Philip’s
shoulder.

“You know, driving things into the heads of thick-witted boys is dull
work, but when now and then you have the chance of teaching a boy who
comes half-way towards you, who understands almost before you’ve got
the words out of your mouth, why, then teaching is the most
exhilarating thing in the world.” Philip was melted by kindness; it had
never occurred to him that it mattered really to Mr. Perkins whether he
went or stayed. He was touched and immensely flattered. It would be
pleasant to end up his school-days with glory and then go to Oxford: in
a flash there appeared before him the life which he had heard described
from boys who came back to play in the O.K.S. match or in letters from
the University read out in one of the studies. But he was ashamed; he
would look such a fool in his own eyes if he gave in now; his uncle
would chuckle at the success of the headmaster’s ruse. It was rather a
come-down from the dramatic surrender of all these prizes which were in
his reach, because he disdained to take them, to the plain, ordinary
winning of them. It only required a little more persuasion, just enough
to save his self-respect, and Philip would have done anything that Mr.
Perkins wished; but his face showed nothing of his conflicting
emotions. It was placid and sullen.

“I think I’d rather go, sir,” he said.

Mr. Perkins, like many men who manage things by their personal
influence, grew a little impatient when his power was not immediately
manifest. He had a great deal of work to do, and could not waste more
time on a boy who seemed to him insanely obstinate.

“Very well, I promised to let you if you really wanted it, and I keep
my promise. When do you go to Germany?”

Philip’s heart beat violently. The battle was won, and he did not know
whether he had not rather lost it.

“At the beginning of May, sir,” he answered.

“Well, you must come and see us when you get back.”

He held out his hand. If he had given him one more chance Philip would
have changed his mind, but he seemed to look upon the matter as
settled. Philip walked out of the house. His school-days were over, and
he was free; but the wild exultation to which he had looked forward at
that moment was not there. He walked round the precincts slowly, and a
profound depression seized him. He wished now that he had not been
foolish. He did not want to go, but he knew he could never bring
himself to go to the headmaster and tell him he would stay. That was a
humiliation he could never put upon himself. He wondered whether he had
done right. He was dissatisfied with himself and with all his
circumstances. He asked himself dully whether whenever you got your way
you wished afterwards that you hadn’t.




XXII


Philip’s uncle had an old friend, called Miss Wilkinson, who lived in
Berlin. She was the daughter of a clergyman, and it was with her
father, the rector of a village in Lincolnshire, that Mr. Carey had
spent his last curacy; on his death, forced to earn her living, she had
taken various situations as a governess in France and Germany. She had
kept up a correspondence with Mrs. Carey, and two or three times had
spent her holidays at Blackstable Vicarage, paying as was usual with
the Careys’ unfrequent guests a small sum for her keep. When it became
clear that it was less trouble to yield to Philip’s wishes than to
resist them, Mrs. Carey wrote to ask her for advice. Miss Wilkinson
recommended Heidelberg as an excellent place to learn German in and the
house of Frau Professor Erlin as a comfortable home. Philip might live
there for thirty marks a week, and the Professor himself, a teacher at
the local high school, would instruct him.

Philip arrived in Heidelberg one morning in May. His things were put on
a barrow and he followed the porter out of the station. The sky was
bright blue, and the trees in the avenue through which they passed were
thick with leaves; there was something in the air fresh to Philip, and
mingled with the timidity he felt at entering on a new life, among
strangers, was a great exhilaration. He was a little disconsolate that
no one had come to meet him, and felt very shy when the porter left him
at the front door of a big white house. An untidy lad let him in and
took him into a drawing-room. It was filled with a large suite covered
in green velvet, and in the middle was a round table. On this in water
stood a bouquet of flowers tightly packed together in a paper frill
like the bone of a mutton chop, and carefully spaced round it were
books in leather bindings. There was a musty smell.

Presently, with an odour of cooking, the Frau Professor came in, a
short, very stout woman with tightly dressed hair and a red face; she
had little eyes, sparkling like beads, and an effusive manner. She took
both Philip’s hands and asked him about Miss Wilkinson, who had twice
spent a few weeks with her. She spoke in German and in broken English.
Philip could not make her understand that he did not know Miss
Wilkinson. Then her two daughters appeared. They seemed hardly young to
Philip, but perhaps they were not more than twenty-five: the elder,
Thekla, was as short as her mother, with the same, rather shifty air,
but with a pretty face and abundant dark hair; Anna, her younger
sister, was tall and plain, but since she had a pleasant smile Philip
immediately preferred her. After a few minutes of polite conversation
the Frau Professor took Philip to his room and left him. It was in a
turret, looking over the tops of the trees in the Anlage; and the bed
was in an alcove, so that when you sat at the desk it had not the look
of a bed-room at all. Philip unpacked his things and set out all his
books. He was his own master at last.

A bell summoned him to dinner at one o’clock, and he found the Frau
Professor’s guests assembled in the drawing-room. He was introduced to
her husband, a tall man of middle age with a large fair head, turning
now to gray, and mild blue eyes. He spoke to Philip in correct, rather
archaic English, having learned it from a study of the English
classics, not from conversation; and it was odd to hear him use words
colloquially which Philip had only met in the plays of Shakespeare.
Frau Professor Erlin called her establishment a family and not a
pension; but it would have required the subtlety of a metaphysician to
find out exactly where the difference lay. When they sat down to dinner
in a long dark apartment that led out of the drawing-room, Philip,
feeling very shy, saw that there were sixteen people. The Frau
Professor sat at one end and carved. The service was conducted, with a
great clattering of plates, by the same clumsy lout who had opened the
door for him; and though he was quick it happened that the first
persons to be served had finished before the last had received their
appointed portions. The Frau Professor insisted that nothing but German
should be spoken, so that Philip, even if his bashfulness had permitted
him to be talkative, was forced to hold his tongue. He looked at the
people among whom he was to live. By the Frau Professor sat several old
ladies, but Philip did not give them much of his attention. There were
two young girls, both fair and one of them very pretty, whom Philip
heard addressed as Fraulein Hedwig and Fraulein Cacilie. Fraulein
Cacilie had a long pig-tail hanging down her back. They sat side by
side and chattered to one another, with smothered laughter: now and
then they glanced at Philip and one of them said something in an
undertone; they both giggled, and Philip blushed awkwardly, feeling
that they were making fun of him. Near them sat a Chinaman, with a
yellow face and an expansive smile, who was studying Western conditions
at the University. He spoke 

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