LXXXVI
IN THE spring Philip, having finished his dressing in the out-patients' department, became an in-patients' clerk. This appointment lasted six months. The clerk spent every morning in the wards, first in the men's, then in the women's, with the house-physician; he wrote up cases, made tests, and passed the time of day with the nurses. On two afternoons a week the physician in charge went round with a little knot of students, examined the cases, and dispensed information. The work had not the excitement, the constant change, the intimate contact with reality, of the work in the out-patients' department; but Philip picked up a good deal of knowledge. He got on very well with the patients, and he was a little flattered at the pleasure they showed in his attendance on them. He was not conscious of any deep sympathy in their sufferings, but he liked them; and because he put on no airs he was more popular with them than others of the clerks. He was pleasant, encouraging, and friendly. Like everyone connected with hospitals he found that male patients were more easy to get on with than female. The women were often querulous and ill-tempered. They complained bitterly of the hard-worked nurses, who did not show them the attention they thought their right; and they were troublesome, ungrateful, and rude.
Presently Philip was fortunate enough to make a friend. One morning the house-physician gave him a new case, a man; and, seating himself at the bedside, Philip proceeded to write down particulars on the ‘letter'. He noticed on looking at this that the patient was described as a journalist: his name was Thorpe Athelny, an unusual one for a hospital patient, and his age was forty-eight. He was suffering from a sharp attack of jaundice, and had been taken into the ward on account of obscure symptoms which it seemed necessary to watch. He answered the various questions which it was Philip's duty to ask him in a pleasant, educated voice. Since he was lying in bed it was difficult to tell if he was short or tall, but his small head and small hands suggested that he was a man of less than average height. Philip had the habit of looking at people's hands, and Athelny's astonished him: they were very small, with long, tapering fingers and beautiful, rosy finger-nails; they were very smooth and except for the jaundice would have been of a surprising whiteness. The patient kept them outside the bed-clothes, one of them slightly spread out, the second and third fingers together, and, while he spoke to Philip, seemed to contemplate them with satisfaction. With a twinkle in his eyes Philip glanced at the man's face. Notwithstanding the yellowness it was distinguished; he had blue eyes, a nose of an imposing boldness, hooked, aggressive, but not clumsy, and a small beard, pointed and grey: he was rather bald, but his hair had evidently been quite fine, curling prettily, and he still wore it long.
‘I see you're a journalist,' said Philip. ‘What papers d'you write for?'
‘I write for all the papers. You cannot open a paper without seeing some of my writing.'
There was one by the side of the bed and reaching for it he pointed out an advertisement. In large letters was the name of a firm well known to Philip: Lynn and Sedley, Regent Street, London; and below, in type smaller but still of some magnitude, was the dogmatic statement: Procrastination is the Thief of Time. Then a question, startling because of its reasonableness: Why not order today? There was a repetition, in large letters, like the hammering of conscience on a murderer's heart: Why not? Then, boldly: Thousands of pairs of gloves from the leading markets of the world at astounding prices. Thousands of pairs of stockings from the most reliable manufacturers of the universe at sensational reductions. Finally the question recurred, but flung now like a challenging gauntlet in the lists: Why not order today?
‘I'm the press representative of Lynn and Sedley.' He gave a little wave of his beautiful hand. ‘To what base uses . . .'
Philip went on asking the regulation questions, some a mere matter of routine, others artfully devised to lead the patient to discover things which he might be expected to desire to conceal.
‘Have you ever lived abroad?' asked Philip.
‘I was in Spain for eleven years.'
‘What were you doing there?'
‘I was secretary of the English water company at Toledo.'
Philip remembered that Clutton had spent some months in Toledo, and the journalist's answer made him look at him with more interest; but he felt it would be improper to show this: it was necessary to preserve the distance between the hospital patient and the staff. When he had finished his examination he went on to other beds.
Thorpe Athelny's illness was not grave, and, though remaining very yellow, he soon felt much better: he stayed in bed only because the physician thought he should be kept under observation till certain reactions became normal. One day, on entering the ward, Philip noticed that Athelny, pencil in hand, was reading a book. He put it down when Philip came to his bed.
‘May I see what you're reading?' asked Philip, who could never pass a book without looking at it.
Philip took it up and saw that it was a volume of Spanish verse, the poems of San Juan de la Cruz, and as he opened it a sheet of paper fell out. Philip picked it up and noticed that verse was written upon it.
‘You're not going to tell me you've been occupying your leisure in writing poetry? That's a most improper proceeding in a hospital patient.'
‘I was trying to do some translations. D'you know Spanish?'
‘No.'
‘Well, you know all about San Juan de la Cruz, don't you?'
‘I don't indeed.'
‘He was one of the Spanish mystics. He's one of the best poets they've ever had. I thought it would be worth while translating him into English.'
‘May I look at your translation?'
‘It's very rough,' said Athelny, but he gave it to Philip with an alacrity which suggested that he was eager for him to read it.
It was written in pencil, in a fine but very peculiar handwriting, which was hard to read: it was just like black-letter.
‘Doesn't it take you an awful time to write like that? It's wonderful.'
‘I don't know why handwriting shouldn't be beautiful.'
Philip read the first verse:
In an obscure night
With anxious love inflamed,
O happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house being now at rest . . .
Philip looked curiously at Thorpe Athelny. He did not know whether he felt a little shy with him or was attracted by him. He was conscious that his manner had been slightly patronizing, and he flushed as it struck him that Athelny might have thought him ridiculous.
‘What an unusual name you've got,' he remarked, for something to say.
‘It's a very old Yorkshire name. Once it took the head of my family a day's hard riding to make the circuit of his estates, but the mighty are fallen. Fast women and slow horses.'
He was short-sighted and when he spoke looked at you with a peculiar intensity. He took up his volume of poetry.
‘You should read Spanish,' he said. ‘It is a noble tongue. It has not the mellifluousness of Italian—Italian is the language of tenors and organ-grinders—but it has grandeur: it does not ripple like a brook in a garden, but it surges tumultuous like a mighty river in flood.'
His grandiloquence amused Philip, but he was sensitive to rhetoric; and he listened with pleasure while Athelny, with picturesque expressions and the fire of a real enthusiasm, described to him the rich delight of reading Don Quixote in the original and the music, romantic, limpid, passionate, of the enchanting Calderón.
‘I must get on with my work,' said Philip presently.
‘Oh, forgive me, I forgot. I will tell my wife to bring me a photograph of Toledo, and I will show it you. Come and talk to me when you have the chance. You don't know what a pleasure it gives me.'
During the next few days, in moments snatched whenever there was opportunity, Philip's acquaintance with the journalist increased. Thorpe Athelny was a good talker. He did not say brilliant things but he talked inspiringly, with an eager vividness which fired the imaginatio
n; Philip, living so much in a world of make-believe, found his fancy teeming with new pictures. Athelny had very good manners. He knew much more than Philip, both of the world and of books; he was a much older man; and the readiness of his conversation gave him a certain superiority; but he was in the hospital a recipient of charity, subject to strict rules; and he held himself between the two positions with ease and humour. Once Philip asked him why he had come to the hospital.
‘Oh, my principle is to profit by all the benefits that society provides. I take advantage of the age I live in. When I'm ill I get myself patched up in a hospital, and I have no false shame, and I send my children to be educated at the board-school.'
‘Do you really?' said Philip.
‘And a capital education they get too, much better than I got at Winchester. How else do you think I could educate them at all? I've got nine. You must come and see them all when I get home again. Will you?'
‘I'd like to very much,' said Philip.
LXXXVII
TEN DAYS later Thorpe Athelny was well enough to leave the hospital. He gave Philip his address, and Philip promised to dine with him at one o'clock on the following Sunday. Athelny had told him that he lived in a house built by Inigo Jones; he had raved, as he raved over everything, over the balustrade of old oak; and when he came down to open the door for Philip he made him at once admire the elegant carving of the lintel. It was a shabby house, badly needing a coat of paint, but with the dignity of its period, in a little street between Chancery Lane and Holborn, which had once been fashionable but was now little better than a slum: there was a plan to pull it down in order to put up handsome offices; meanwhile the rents were small, and Athelny was able to get the two upper floors at a price which suited his income. Philip had not seen him up before and was surprised at his small size; he was not more than five feet and five inches high. He was dressed fantastically in blue linen trousers of the sort worn by working men in France, and a very old brown velvet coat; he wore a bright red sash round his waist, a low collar, and for tie a flowing bow of the kind used by the comic Frenchman in the pages of Punch. He greeted Philip with enthusiasm. He began talking at once of the house and passed his hand lovingly over the balusters.
‘Look at it, feel it, it's like silk. What a miracle of grace! And in five years the house-breaker will sell it for firewood.'
He insisted on taking Philip into a room on the first floor, where a man in shirt-sleeves, a blousy woman, and three children were having their Sunday dinner.
‘I've just brought this gentleman in to show him your ceiling. Did you ever see anything so wonderful? How are you, Mrs Hodgson? This is Mr Carey, who looked after me when I was in the hospital.'
‘Come in, sir,' said the man. ‘Any friend of Mr Athelny's is welcome. Mr Athelny shows the ceiling to all his friends. And it don't matter what we're doing, if we're in bed or if I'm 'aving a wash, in 'e comes.'
Philip could see that they looked upon Athelny as a little queer; but they liked him none the less; and they listened open-mouthed while he discoursed with his impetuous fluency on the beauty of the seventeenth-century ceiling.
‘What a crime to pull this down, eh, Hodgson? You're an influential citizen, why don't you write to the papers and protest?'
The man in shirt-sleeves gave a laugh and said to Philip:
‘Mr Athelny will 'ave his little joke. They do say these 'ouses are that insanitary, it's not safe to live in them.'
‘Sanitation be damned, give me art,' cried Athelny. ‘I've got nine children and they thrive on bad drains. No, no, I'm not going to take any risks. None of your new-fangled notions for me! When I move from here I'm going to make sure the drains are bad before I take anything.'
There was a knock at the door, and a little fair-haired girl opened it.
‘Daddy, mummy says, do stop talking and come and eat your dinner.'
‘This is my third daughter,' said Athelny, pointing to her with a dramatic forefinger. ‘She is called María del Pilar, but she answers more willingly to the name of Jane. Jane, your nose wants blowing.'
‘I haven't got a hanky, daddy.'
‘Tut, tut, child,' he answered, as he produced a vast, brilliant bandanna, ‘what do you suppose the Almighty gave you fingers for?'
They went upstairs, and Philip was taken into a room with walls panelled in dark oak. In the middle was a narrow table of teak on trestle legs, with two supporting bars of iron, of the kind called in Spain mesa de bieraje. They were to dine there, for two places were laid, and there were two large arm-chairs, with broad flat arms of oak and leathern backs, and leathern seats. They were severe, elegant, and uncomfortable. The only other piece of furniture was a bargueno, elaborately ornamented with gilt iron-work, on a stand of ecclesiastical design roughly but very finely carved. There stood on this two or three lustre plates, much broken but rich in colour; and on the walls were old masters of the Spanish school in beautiful though dilapidated frames: though gruesome in subject, ruined by age and bad treatment, and second-rate in their conception, they had a glow of passion. There was nothing in the room of any value, but the effect was lovely. It was magnificent and yet austere. Philip felt that it offered the very spirit of old Spain. Athelny was in the middle of showing him the inside of the bargueno, with its beautiful ornamentation and secret drawers, when a tall girl, with two plaits of bright brown hair hanging down her back, came in.
‘Mother says dinner's ready and waiting and I'm to bring it in as soon as you sit down.'
‘Come and shake hands with Mr Carey, Sally.' He turned to Philip. ‘Isn't she enormous? She's my eldest. How old are you, Sally?'
‘Fifteen, father, come next June.'
‘I christened her María del Sol, because she was my first child and I dedicated her to the glorious sun of Castile; but her mother calls her Sally and her brother Pudding-face.'
The girl smiled shyly, she had even, white teeth, and blushed. She was well set-up, tall for her age, with pleasant grey eyes and a broad forehead. She had red cheeks.
‘Go and tell your mother to come in and shake hands with Mr Carey before he sits down.'
‘Mother says she'll come in after dinner. She hasn't washed herself yet.'
‘Then we'll go in and see her ourselves. He mustn't eat the Yorkshire pudding till he's shaken the hand that made it.'
Philip followed his host into the kitchen. It was small and much overcrowded. There had been a lot of noise, but it stopped as soon as the stranger entered. There was a large table in the middle and round it, eager for dinner, were seated Athelny's children. A woman was standing at the oven, taking out baked potatoes one by one.
‘Here's Mr Carey, Betty,' said Athelny.
‘Fancy bringing him in here. What will he think?'
She wore a dirty apron, and the sleeves of her cotton dress were turned up above her elbows; she had curling pins in her hair. Mrs Athelny was a large woman, a good three inches taller than her husband, fair, with blue eyes and a kindly expression; she had been a handsome creature, but advancing years and the bearing of many children had made her fat and blousy; her blue eyes had become pale, her skin was coarse and red, the colour had gone out of her hair. She straightened herself, wiped her hand on her apron, and held it out.
‘You're welcome, sir,' she said, in a slow voice, with an accent that seemed oddly familiar to Philip. ‘Athelny said you was very kind to him in the 'orspital.'
‘Now you must be introduced to the live stock,' said Athelny. ‘That is Thorpe,' he pointed to a chubby boy with curly hair; ‘he is my eldest son, heir to the title, estates, and responsibilities of the family. There is Athelstan, Harold, Edward.' He pointed with his forefinger to three smaller boys, all rosy, healthy, and smiling, though when they felt Philip's smiling eyes upon them they looked shyly down at their plates. ‘Now the girls in order: María del Sol . . .'
‘Pudding-face,' said one of the small boys.
‘Your sense of humour is rudimentary, my son. María de los Mercede
s, María del Pilar, María de la Concepción, María del Rosario.'
‘I call them Sally, Molly, Connie, Rosie, and Jane,' said Mrs Athelny. ‘Now, Athelny, you go into your own room and I'll send you your dinner. I'll let the children come in afterwards for a bit when I've washed them.'
‘My dear, if I'd had the naming of you I should have called you María of the Soapsuds. You're always torturing these wretched brats with soap.'
‘You go first, Mr Carey, or I shall never get him to sit down and eat his dinner.'
Athelny and Philip installed themselves in the great monkish chairs, and Sally brought them in two plates of beef, Yorkshire pudding, baked potatoes, and cabbage. Athelny took sixpence out of his pocket and sent her for a jug of beer.
‘I hope you didn't have the table laid here on my account,' said Philip. ‘I should have been quite happy to eat with the children.'
‘Oh no, I always have my meals by myself. I like these antique customs. I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.'
Both host and guest ate with a hearty appetite.
‘Did you ever taste such Yorkshire pudding? No one can make it like my wife. That's the advantage of not marrying a lady. You noticed she wasn't a lady, didn't you?'
It was an awkward question, and Philip did not know how to answer it.
‘I never thought about it,' he said lamely.
Athelny laughed. He had a peculiarly joyous laugh.
‘No, she's not a lady, nor anything like it. Her father was a farmer, and she's never bothered about aitches in her life. We've had twelve children and nine of them are alive. I tell her it's about time she stopped, but she's an obstinate woman, she's got into the habit of it now, and I don't believe she'll be satisfied till she's had twenty.'
Of Human Bondage Page 54