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

about her eyes the black which remained after a perfunctory wash in the morning: it made her look very ill. She was a pathetic figure as she stepped out of the cab with the baby in her arms. She seemed a little shy, and they found nothing but commonplace things to say to one another.

“So you’ve got here all right.”

“I’ve never lived in this part of London before.”

Philip showed her the room. It was that in which Cronshaw had died. Philip, though he thought it absurd, had never liked the idea of going back to it; and since Cronshaw’s death he had remained in the little room, sleeping on a fold-up bed, into which he had first moved in order to make his friend comfortable. The baby was sleeping placidly.

“You don’t recognise her, I expect,” said Mildred.

“I’ve not seen her since we took her down to Brighton.”

“Where shall I put her? She’s so heavy I can’t carry her very long.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t got a cradle,” said Philip, with a nervous laugh.

“Oh, she’ll sleep with me. She always does.”

Mildred put the baby in an arm-chair and looked round the room. She recognised most of the things which she had known in his old diggings. Only one thing was new, a head and shoulders of Philip which Lawson had painted at the end of the preceding summer; it hung over the chimney-piece; Mildred looked at it critically.

“In some ways I like it and in some ways I don’t. I think you’re better looking than that.”

“Things are looking up,” laughed Philip. “You’ve never told me I was good-looking before.”

“I’m not one to worry myself about a man’s looks. I don’t like good-looking men. They’re too conceited for me.”

Her eyes travelled round the room in an instinctive search for a looking-glass, but there was none; she put up her hand and patted her large fringe.

“What’ll the other people in the house say to my being here?” she asked suddenly.

“Oh, there’s only a man and his wife living here. He’s out all day, and I never see her except on Saturday to pay my rent. They keep entirely to themselves. I’ve not spoken two words to either of them since I came.”

Mildred went into the bedroom to undo her things and put them away. Philip tried to read, but his spirits were too high: he leaned back in his chair, smoking a cigarette, and with smiling eyes looked at the sleeping child. He felt very happy. He was quite sure that he was not at all in love with Mildred. He was surprised that the old feeling had left him so completely; he discerned in himself a faint physical repulsion from her; and he thought that if he touched her it would give him goose-flesh. He could not understand himself. Presently, knocking at the door, she came in again.

“I say, you needn’t knock,” he said. “Have you made the tour of the mansion?”

“It’s the smallest kitchen I’ve ever seen.”

“You’ll find it large enough to cook our sumptuous repasts,” he retorted lightly.

“I see there’s nothing in. I’d better go out and get something.”

“Yes, but I venture to remind you that we must be devilish economical.”

“What shall I get for supper?”

“You’d better get what you think you can cook,” laughed Philip.

He gave her some money and she went out. She came in half an hour later and put her purchases on the table. She was out of breath from climbing the stairs.

“I say, you are anaemic,” said Philip. “I’ll have to dose you with Blaud’s Pills.”

“It took me some time to find the shops. I bought some liver. That’s tasty, isn’t it? And you can’t eat much of it, so it’s more economical than butcher’s meat.”

There was a gas stove in the kitchen, and when she had put the liver on, Mildred came into the sitting-room to lay the cloth.

“Why are you only laying one place?” asked Philip. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

Mildred flushed.

“I thought you mightn’t like me to have my meals with you.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Well, I’m only a servant, aren’t I?”

“Don’t be an ass. How can you be so silly?”

He smiled, but her humility gave him a curious twist in his heart. Poor thing! He remembered what she had been when first he knew her. He hesitated for an instant.

“Don’t think I’m conferring any benefit on you,” he said. “It’s simply a business arrangement, I’m giving you board and lodging in return for your work. You don’t owe me anything. And there’s nothing humiliating to you in it.”

She did not answer, but tears rolled heavily down her cheeks. Philip knew from his experience at the hospital that women of her class looked upon service as degrading: he could not help feeling a little impatient with her; but he blamed himself, for it was clear that she was tired and ill. He got up and helped her to lay another place at the table. The baby was awake now, and Mildred had prepared some Mellin’s Food for it. The liver and bacon were ready and they sat down. For economy’s sake Philip had given up drinking anything but water, but he had in the house a half a bottle of whiskey, and he thought a little would do Mildred good. He did his best to make the supper pass cheerfully, but Mildred was subdued and exhausted. When they had finished she got up to put the baby to bed.

“I think you’ll do well to turn in early yourself,” said Philip. “You look absolute done up.”

“I think I will after I’ve washed up.”

Philip lit his pipe and began to read. It was pleasant to hear somebody moving about in the next room. Sometimes his loneliness had oppressed him. Mildred came in to clear the table, and he heard the clatter of plates as she washed up. Philip smiled as he thought how characteristic it was of her that she should do all that in a black silk dress. But he had work to do, and he brought his book up to the table. He was reading Osler’s Medicine, which had recently taken the place in the students’ favour of Taylor’s work, for many years the text-book most in use. Presently Mildred came in, rolling down her sleeves. Philip gave her a casual glance, but did not move; the occasion was curious, and he felt a little nervous. He feared that Mildred might imagine he was going to make a nuisance of himself, and he did not quite know how without brutality to reassure her.

“By the way, I’ve got a lecture at nine, so I should want breakfast at a quarter past eight. Can you manage that?”

“Oh, yes. Why, when I was in Parliament Street I used to catch the eight-twelve from Herne Hill every morning.”

“I hope you’ll find your room comfortable. You’ll be a different woman tomorrow after a long night in bed.”

“I suppose you work till late?”

“I generally work till about eleven or half-past.”

“I’ll say good-night then.”

“Good-night.”

The table was between them. He did not offer to shake hands with her. She shut the door quietly. He heard her moving about in the bedroom, and in a little while he heard the creaking of the bed as she got in.

XCII

The following day was Tuesday. Philip as usual hurried through his breakfast and dashed off to get to his lecture at nine. He had only time to exchange a few words with Mildred. When he came back in the evening he found her seated at the window, darning his socks.

“I say, you are industrious,” he smiled. “What have you been doing with yourself all day?”

“Oh, I gave the place a good cleaning and then I took baby out for a little.”

She was wearing an old black dress, the same as she had worn as uniform when she served in the tea-shop; it was shabby, but she looked better in it than in the silk of the day before. The baby was sitting on the floor. She looked up at Philip with large, mysterious eyes and broke into a laugh when he sat down beside her and began playing with her bare toes. The afternoon sun came into the room and shed a mellow light.

“It’s rather jolly to come back and find someone about the place. A woman and a baby make very good decoration in a room.”

He had gone to the hospital dispensary and got a bottle of Blaud’s Pills, He gave them to Mildred and told her she must take them after each meal. It was a remedy she was used to, for she had taken it off and on ever since she was sixteen.

“I’m sure Lawson would love that green skin of yours,” said Philip. “He’d say it was so paintable, but I’m terribly matter of fact nowadays, and I shan’t be happy till you’re as pink and white as a milkmaid.”

“I feel better already.”

After a frugal supper Philip filled his pouch with tobacco and put on his hat. It was on Tuesdays that he generally went to the tavern in Beak Street, and he was glad that this day came so soon after Mildred’s arrival, for he wanted to make his relations with her perfectly clear.

“Are you going out?” she said.

“Yes, on Tuesdays I give myself a night off. I shall see you tomorrow. Good-night.”

Philip always went to the tavern with a sense of pleasure. Macalister, the philosophic stockbroker, was generally there and glad to argue upon any subject under the sun; Hayward came regularly when he was in London; and though he and Macalister disliked one another they continued out of habit to meet on that one evening in the week. Macalister thought Hayward a poor creature, and sneered at his delicacies of sentiment: he asked satirically about Hayward’s literary work and received with scornful smiles his vague suggestions of future masterpieces; their arguments were often heated; but the punch was good, and they were both fond of it; towards the end of the evening they generally composed their differences and thought each other capital fellows. This evening Philip found them both there, and Lawson also; Lawson came more seldom now that he was beginning to know people in London and went out to dinner a good deal. They were all on excellent terms with themselves, for Macalister had given them a good thing on the Stock Exchange, and Hayward and Lawson had made fifty pounds apiece. It was a great thing for Lawson, who was extravagant and earned little money: he had arrived at that stage of the portrait-painter’s career when he was noticed a good deal by the critics and found a number of aristocratic ladies who were willing to allow him to paint them for nothing (it advertised them both, and gave the great ladies quite an air of patronesses of the arts); but he very seldom got hold of the solid philistine who was ready to pay good money for a portrait of his wife. Lawson was brimming over with satisfaction.

“It’s the most ripping way of making money that I’ve ever struck,” he cried. “I didn’t have to put my hand in my pocket for sixpence.”

“You lost something by not being here last Tuesday, young man,” said Macalister to Philip.

“My God, why didn’t you write to me?” said Philip. “If you only knew how useful a hundred pounds would be to me.”

“Oh, there wasn’t time for that. One has to be on the spot. I heard of a good thing last Tuesday, and I asked these fellows if they’d like to have a flutter, I bought them a thousand shares on Wednesday