Of Human Bondage (115 page)

  "No, I won't do that. It would look funny."

  Never a word of love passed between them. She seemed
not to desire anything more than the companionship of those walks.
Yet Philip was positive that she was glad to be with him. She
puzzled him as much as she had done at the beginning. He did not
begin to understand her conduct; but the more he knew her the
fonder he grew of her; she was competent and self controlled, and
there was a charming honesty in her: you felt that you could rely
upon her in every circumstance.

  "You are an awfully good sort," he said to her once
a propos of nothing at all.

  "I expect I'm just the same as everyone else," she
answered.

  He knew that he did not love her. It was a great
affection that he felt for her, and he liked her company; it was
curiously soothing; and he had a feeling for her which seemed to
him ridiculous to entertain towards a shop-girl of nineteen: he
respected her. And he admired her magnificent healthiness. She was
a splendid animal, without defect; and physical perfection filled
him always with admiring awe. She made him feel unworthy.

  Then, one day, about three weeks after they had come
back to London as they walked together, he noticed that she was
unusually silent. The serenity of her expression was altered by a
slight line between the eyebrows: it was the beginning of a
frown.

  "What's the matter, Sally?" he asked.

  She did not look at him, but straight in front of
her, and her colour darkened.

  "I don't know."

  He understood at once what she meant. His heart gave
a sudden, quick beat, and he felt the colour leave his cheeks.

  "What d'you mean? Are you afraid that... ?"

  He stopped. He could not go on. The possibility that
anything of the sort could happen had never crossed his mind. Then
he saw that her lips were trembling, and she was trying not to
cry.

  "I'm not certain yet. Perhaps it'll be all
right."

  They walked on in silence till they came to the
corner of Chancery Lane, where he always left her. She held out her
hand and smiled.

  "Don't worry about it yet. Let's hope for the
best."

  He walked away with a tumult of thoughts in his
head. What a fool he had been! That was the first thing that struck
him, an abject, miserable fool, and he repeated it to himself a
dozen times in a rush of angry feeling. He despised himself. How
could he have got into such a mess? But at the same time, for his
thoughts chased one another through his brain and yet seemed to
stand together, in a hopeless confusion, like the pieces of a
jig-saw puzzle seen in a nightmare, he asked himself what he was
going to do. Everything was so clear before him, all he had aimed
at so long within reach at last, and now his inconceivable
stupidity had erected this new obstacle. Philip had never been able
to surmount what he acknowledged was a defect in his resolute
desire for a well ordered life, and that was his passion for living
in the future; and no sooner was he settled in his work at the
hospital than he had busied himself with arrangements for his
travels. In the past he had often tried not to think too
circumstantially of his plans for the future, it was only
discouraging; but now that his goal was so near he saw no harm in
giving away to a longing that was so difficult to resist. First of
all he meant to go to Spain. That was the land of his heart; and by
now he was imbued with its spirit, its romance and colour and
history and grandeur; he felt that it had a message for him in
particular which no other country could give. He knew the fine old
cities already as though he had trodden their tortuous streets from
childhood. Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Leon, Tarragona, Burgos. The
great painters of Spain were the painters of his soul, and his
pulse beat quickly as he pictured his ecstasy on standing face to
face with those works which were more significant than any others
to his own tortured, restless heart. He had read the great poets,
more characteristic of their race than the poets of other lands;
for they seemed to have drawn their inspiration not at all from the
general currents of the world's literature but directly from the
torrid, scented plains and the bleak mountains of their country. A
few short months now, and he would hear with his own ears all
around him the language which seemed most apt for grandeur of soul
and passion. His fine taste had given him an inkling that Andalusia
was too soft and sensuous, a little vulgar even, to satisfy his
ardour; and his imagination dwelt more willingly among the
wind-swept distances of Castile and the rugged magnificence of
Aragon and Leon. He did not know quite what those unknown contacts
would give him, but he felt that he would gather from them a
strength and a purpose which would make him more capable of
affronting and comprehending the manifold wonders of places more
distant and more strange.

  For this was only a beginning. He had got into
communication with the various companies which took surgeons out on
their ships, and knew exactly what were their routes, and from men
who had been on them what were the advantages and disadvantages of
each line. He put aside the Orient and the P. & O. It was
difficult to get a berth with them; and besides their passenger
traffic allowed the medical officer little freedom; but there were
other services which sent large tramps on leisurely expeditions to
the East, stopping at all sorts of ports for various periods, from
a day or two to a fortnight, so that you had plenty of time, and it
was often possible to make a trip inland. The pay was poor and the
food no more than adequate, so that there was not much demand for
the posts, and a man with a London degree was pretty sure to get
one if he applied. Since there were no passengers other than a
casual man or so, shipping on business from some out-of-the-way
port to another, the life on board was friendly and pleasant.
Philip knew by heart the list of places at which they touched; and
each one called up in him visions of tropical sunshine, and magic
colour, and of a teeming, mysterious, intense life. Life! That was
what he wanted. At last he would come to close quarters with Life.
And perhaps, from Tokyo or Shanghai it would be possible to
tranship into some other line and drip down to the islands of the
South Pacific. A doctor was useful anywhere. There might be an
opportunity to go up country in Burmah, and what rich jungles in
Sumatra or Borneo might he not visit? He was young still and time
was no object to him. He had no ties in England, no friends; he
could go up and down the world for years, learning the beauty and
the wonder and the variedness of life.

  Now this thing had come. He put aside the
possibility that Sally was mistaken; he felt strangely certain that
she was right; after all, it was so likely; anyone could see that
Nature had built her to be the mother of children. He knew what he
ought to do. He ought not to let the incident divert him a hair's
breadth from his path. He thought of Griffiths; he could easily
imagine with what indifference that young man would have received
such a piece of news; he would have thought it an awful nuisance
and would at once have taken to his heels, like a wise fellow; he
would have left the girl to deal with her troubles as best she
could. Philip told himself that if this had happened it was because
it was inevitable. He was no more to blame than Sally; she was a
girl who knew the world and the facts of life, and she had taken
the risk with her eyes open. It would be madness to allow such an
accident to disturb the whole pattern of his life. He was one of
the few people who was acutely conscious of the transitoriness of
life, and how necessary it was to make the most of it. He would do
what he could for Sally; he could afford to give her a sufficient
sum of money. A strong man would never allow himself to be turned
from his purpose.

  Philip said all this to himself, but he knew he
could not do it. He simply could not. He knew himself.

  "I'm so damned weak," he muttered despairingly.

  She had trusted him and been kind to him. He simply
could not do a thing which, notwithstanding all his reason, he felt
was horrible. He knew he would have no peace on his travels if he
had the thought constantly with him that she was wretched. Besides,
there were her father and mother: they had always treated him well;
it was not possible to repay them with ingratitude. The only thing
was to marry Sally as quickly as possible. He would write to Doctor
South, tell him he was going to be married at once, and say that if
his offer still held he was willing to accept it. That sort of
practice, among poor people, was the only one possible for him;
there his deformity did not matter, and they would not sneer at the
simple manners of his wife. It was curious to think of her as his
wife, it gave him a queer, soft feeling; and a wave of emotion
spread over him as he thought of the child which was his. He had
little doubt that Doctor South would be glad to have him, and he
pictured to himself the life he would lead with Sally in the
fishing village. They would have a little house within sight of the
sea, and he would watch the mighty ships passing to the lands he
would never know. Perhaps that was the wisest thing. Cronshaw had
told him that the facts of life mattered nothing to him who by the
power of fancy held in fee the twin realms of space and time. It
was true. Forever wilt thou love and she be fair!

  His wedding present to his wife would be all his
high hopes. Self-sacrifice! Philip was uplifted by its beauty, and
all through the evening he thought of it. He was so excited that he
could not read. He seemed to be driven out of his rooms into the
streets, and he walked up and down Birdcage Walk, his heart
throbbing with joy. He could hardly bear his impatience. He wanted
to see Sally's happiness when he made her his offer, and if it had
not been so late he would have gone to her there and then. He
pictured to himself the long evenings he would spend with Sally in
the cosy sitting-room, the blinds undrawn so that they could watch
the sea; he with his books, while she bent over her work, and the
shaded lamp made her sweet face more fair. They would talk over the
growing child, and when she turned her eyes to his there was in
them the light of love. And the fishermen and their wives who were
his patients would come to feel a great affection for them, and
they in their turn would enter into the pleasures and pains of
those simple lives. But his thoughts returned to the son who would
be his and hers. Already he felt in himself a passionate devotion
to it. He thought of passing his hands over his little perfect
limbs, he knew he would be beautiful; and he would make over to him
all his dreams of a rich and varied life. And thinking over the
long pilgrimage of his past he accepted it joyfully. He accepted
the deformity which had made life so hard for him; he knew that it
had warped his character, but now he saw also that by reason of it
he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so
much delight. Without it he would never have had his keen
appreciation of beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his
interest in the varied spectacle of life. The ridicule and the
contempt which had so often been heaped upon him had turned his
mind inward and called forth those flowers which he felt would
never lose their fragrance. Then he saw that the normal was the
rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of body or of
mind: he thought of all the people he had known (the whole world
was like a sick-house, and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he
saw a long procession, deformed in body and warped in mind, some
with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak lungs, and some with
illness of the spirit, languor of will, or a craving for liquor. At
this moment he could feel a holy compassion for them all. They were
the helpless instruments of blind chance. He could pardon Griffiths
for his treachery and Mildred for the pain she had caused him. They
could not help themselves. The only reasonable thing was to accept
the good of men and be patient with their faults. The words of the
dying God crossed his memory:

  Forgive them, for they know not what they do.