Chapters 1-6 - 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.