Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham (best novels to read txt) 📗

of thing at all,” she said, as she glanced at them impatiently. “What I want is something that’ll just hit ‘em in the jaw and make their front teeth rattle.”

“Yes, I quite understand, Miss Antonia,” said the buyer, with a bland smile, but his eyes grew blank and stupid.

“I expect I shall ‘ave to pop over to Paris for it in the end.”

“Oh, I think we can give you satisfaction, Miss Antonia. What you can get in Paris you can get here.”

When she had swept out of the department Mr. Sampson, a little worried, discussed the matter with Mrs. Hodges.

“She’s a caution and no mistake,” said Mrs. Hodges.

“Alice, where art thou?” remarked the buyer, irritably, and thought he had scored a point against her.

His ideas of music-hall costumes had never gone beyond short skirts, a swirl of lace, and glittering sequins; but Miss Antonia had expressed herself on that subject in no uncertain terms.

“Oh, my aunt!” she said.

And the invocation was uttered in such a tone as to indicate a rooted antipathy to anything so commonplace, even if she had not added that sequins gave her the sick. Mr. Sampson `got out’ one or two ideas, but Mrs. Hodges told him frankly she did not think they would do. It was she who gave Philip the suggestion:

“Can you draw, Phil? Why don’t you try your ‘and and see what you can do?”

Philip bought a cheap box of water colours, and in the evening while Bell, the noisy lad of sixteen, whistling three notes, busied himself with his stamps, he made one or two sketches. He remembered some of the costumes he had seen in Paris, and he adapted one of them, getting his effect from a combination of violent, unusual colours. The result amused him and next morning he showed it to Mrs. Hodges. She was somewhat astonished, but took it at once to the buyer.

“It’s unusual,” he said, “there’s no denying that.”

It puzzled him, and at the same time his trained eye saw that it would make up admirably. To save his face he began making suggestions for altering it, but Mrs. Hodges, with more sense, advised him to show it to Miss Antonia as it was.

“It’s neck or nothing with her, and she may take a fancy to it.”

“It’s a good deal more nothing than neck,” said Mr. Sampson, looking at the decolletage. “He can draw, can’t he? Fancy ‘im keeping it dark all this time.”

When Miss Antonia was announced, the buyer placed the design on the table in such a position that it must catch her eye the moment she was shown into his office. She pounced on it at once.

“What’s that?” she said. “Why can’t I ‘ave that?”

“That’s just an idea we got out for you,” said Mr. Sampson casually. “D’you like it?”

“Do I like it!” she said. “Give me ‘alf a pint with a little drop of gin in it.”

“Ah, you see, you don’t have to go to Paris. You’ve only got to say what you want and there you are.”

The work was put in hand at once, and Philip felt quite a thrill of satisfaction when he saw the costume completed. The buyer and Mrs. Hodges took all the credit of it; but he did not care, and when he went with them to the Tivoli to see Miss Antonia wear it for the first time he was filled with elation. In answer to her questions he at last told Mrs. Hodges how he had learnt to draw—fearing that the people he lived with would think he wanted to put on airs, he had always taken the greatest care to say nothing about his past occupations—and she repeated the information to Mr. Sampson. The buyer said nothing to him on the subject, but began to treat him a little more deferentially and presently gave him designs to do for two of the country customers. They met with satisfaction. Then he began to speak to his clients of a “clever young feller, Paris art-student, you know,” who worked for him; and soon Philip, ensconced behind a screen, in his shirt sleeves, was drawing from morning till night. Sometimes he was so busy that he had to dine at three with the `stragglers.’ He liked it, because there were few of them and they were all too tired to talk; the food also was better, for it consisted of what was left over from the buyers’ table. Philip’s rise from shop-walker to designer of costumes had a great effect on the department. He realised that he was an object of envy. Harris, the assistant with the queer-shaped head, who was the first person he had known at the shop and had attached himself to Philip, could not conceal his bitterness.

“Some people ‘ave all the luck,” he said. “You’ll be a buyer yourself one of these days, and we shall all be calling you sir.”

He told Philip that he should demand higher wages, for notwithstanding the difficult work he was now engaged in, he received no more than the six shillings a week with which he started. But it was a ticklish matter to ask for a rise. The manager had a sardonic way of dealing with such applicants.

“Think you’re worth more, do you? How much d’you think you’re worth, eh?”

The assistant, with his heart in his mouth, would suggest that he thought he ought to have another two shillings a week.

“Oh, very well, if you think you’re worth it. You can ‘ave it.” Then he paused and sometimes, with a steely eye, added: “And you can ‘ave your notice too.”

It was no use then to withdraw your request, you had to go. The manager’s idea was that assistants who were dissatisfied did not work properly, and if they were not worth a rise it was better to sack them at once. The result was that they never asked for one unless they were prepared to leave. Philip hesitated. He was a little suspicious of the men in his room who told him that the buyer could not do without him. They were decent fellows, but their sense of humour was primitive, and it would have seemed funny to them if they had persuaded Philip to ask for more wages and he were sacked. He could not forget the mortification he had suffered in looking for work, he did not wish to expose himself to that again, and he knew there was small chance of his getting elsewhere a post as designer: there were hundreds of people about who could draw as well as he. But he wanted money very badly; his clothes were worn out, and the heavy carpets rotted his socks and boots; he had almost persuaded himself to take the venturesome step when one morning, passing up from breakfast in the basement through the passage that led to the manager’s office, he saw a queue of men waiting in answer to an advertisement. There were about a hundred of them, and whichever was engaged would be offered his keep and the same six shillings a week that Philip had. He saw some of them cast envious glances at him because he had employment. It made him shudder. He dared not risk it.

CVIII

The winter passed. Now and then Philip went to the hospital, slinking in when it was late and there was little chance of meeting anyone he knew, to see whether there were letters for him. At Easter he received one from his uncle. He was surprised to hear from him, for the Vicar of Blackstable had never written him more than half a dozen letters in his whole life, and they were on business matters.

 

Dear Philip,

If you are thinking of taking a holiday soon and care to come down here I shall be pleased to see you. I was very ill with my bronchitis in the winter and Doctor Wigram never expected me to pull through. I have a wonderful constitution and I made, thank God, a marvellous recovery. Yours affectionately, William Carey.

 

The letter made Philip angry. How did his uncle think he was living? He did not even trouble to inquire. He might have starved for all the old man cared. But as he walked home something struck him; he stopped under a lamp-post and read the letter again; the handwriting had no longer the business-like firmness which had characterised it; it was larger and wavering: perhaps the illness had shaken him more than he was willing to confess, and he sought in that formal note to express a yearning to see the only relation he had in the world. Philip wrote back that he could come down to Blackstable for a fortnight in July. The invitation was convenient, for he had not known what to do, with his brief holiday. The Athelnys went hopping in September, but he could not then be spared, since during that month the autumn models were prepared. The rule of Lynn’s was that everyone must take a fortnight whether he wanted it or not; and during that time, if he had nowhere to go, the assistant might sleep in his room, but he was not allowed food. A number had no friends within reasonable distance of London, and to these the holiday was an awkward interval when they had to provide food out of their small wages and, with the whole day on their hands, had nothing to spend. Philip had not been out of London since his visit to Brighton with Mildred, now two years before, and he longed for fresh air and the silence of the sea. He thought of it with such a passionate desire, all through May and June, that, when at length the time came for him to go, he was listless.

On his last evening, when he talked with the buyer of one or two jobs he had to leave over, Mr. Sampson suddenly said to him:

“What wages have you been getting?”

“Six shillings.”

“I don’t think it’s enough. I’ll see that you’re put up to twelve when you come back.”

“Thank you very much,” smiled Philip. “I’m beginning to want some new clothes badly.”

“If you stick to your work and don’t go larking about with the girls like what some of them do, I’ll look after you, Carey. Mind you, you’ve got a lot to learn, but you’re promising, I’ll say that for you, you’re promising, and I’ll see that you get a pound a week as soon as you deserve it.”

Philip wondered how long he would have to wait for that. Two years?

He was startled at the change in his uncle. When last he had seen him he was a stout man, who held himself upright, clean-shaven, with a round, sensual face; but he had fallen in strangely, his skin was yellow; there were great bags under the eyes, and he was bent and old. He had grown a beard during his last illness, and he walked very slowly.

“I ‘m not at my best today,” he said when Philip, having just arrived, was sitting with him in the dining-room. “The heat upsets me.”

Philip, asking after the affairs of the parish, looked at him and wondered how much longer he could last. A hot summer would finish him; Philip noticed how thin his hands were; they trembled. It meant so much to Philip. If he died that summer he could go back to the hospital at the beginning of the winter session; his heart leaped at the thought of returning no more to Lynn’s. At dinner the Vicar sat humped up on his chair, and the housekeeper who had been with him since his wife’s death said:

“Shall Mr. Philip carve, sir?”

The old man, who had been