Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  “I’ve never known anybody else’s baby, so I can’t say,” said Philip.

  Towards the end of his second term as in-patients’ clerk a piece of good fortune befell Philip. It was the middle of July. He went one Tuesday evening to the tavern in Beak Street and found nobody there but Macalister. They sat together, chatting about their absent friends, and after a while Macalister said to him:

  “Oh, by the way, I heard of a rather good thing today, New Kleinfonteins; it’s a gold mine in Rhodesia. If you’d like to have a flutter you might make a bit.”

  Philip had been waiting anxiously for such an opportunity, but now that it came he hesitated. He was desperately afraid of losing money. He had little of the gambler’s spirit.

  “I’d love to, but I don’t know if I dare risk it. How much could I lose if things went wrong?”

  “I shouldn’t have spoken of it, only you seemed so keen about it,”

  Macalister answered coldly.

  Philip felt that Macalister looked upon him as rather a donkey.

  “I’m awfully keen on making a bit,” he laughed.

  “You can’t make money unless you’re prepared to risk money.”

  Macalister began to talk of other things and Philip, while he was answering him, kept thinking that if the venture turned out well the stockbroker would be very facetious at his expense next time they met. Macalister had a sarcastic tongue.

  “I think I will have a flutter if you don’t mind,” said Philip anxiously.

  “All right. I’ll buy you two hundred and fifty shares and if I see a half-crown rise I’ll sell them at once.”

  Philip quickly reckoned out how much that would amount to, and his mouth watered; thirty pounds would be a godsend just then, and he thought the fates owed him something. He told Mildred what he had done when he saw her at breakfast next morning. She thought him very silly.

  “I never knew anyone who made money on the Stock Exchange,” she said.

  “That’s what Emil always said, you can’t expect to make money on the Stock

  Exchange, he said.”

  Philip bought an evening paper on his way home and turned at once to the money columns. He knew nothing about these things and had difficulty in finding the stock which Macalister had spoken of. He saw they had advanced a quarter. His heart leaped, and then he felt sick with apprehension in case Macalister had forgotten or for some reason had not bought. Macalister had promised to telegraph. Philip could not wait to take a tram home. He jumped into a cab. It was an unwonted extravagance.

  “Is there a telegram for me?” he said, as he burst in.

  “No,” said Mildred.

  His face fell, and in bitter disappointment he sank heavily into a chair.

  “Then he didn’t buy them for me after all. Curse him,” he added violently. “What cruel luck! And I’ve been thinking all day of what I’d do with the money.”

  “Why, what were you going to do?” she asked.

  “What’s the good of thinking about that now? Oh, I wanted the money so badly.”

  She gave a laugh and handed him a telegram.

  “I was only having a joke with you. I opened it.”

  He tore it out of her hands. Macalister had bought him two hundred and fifty shares and sold them at the half-crown profit he had suggested. The commission note was to follow next day. For one moment Philip was furious with Mildred for her cruel jest, but then he could only think of his joy.

  “It makes such a difference to me,” he cried. “I’ll stand you a new dress if you like.”

  “I want it badly enough,” she answered.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to be operated upon at the end of July.”

  “Why, have you got something the matter with you?” she interrupted.

  It struck her that an illness she did not know might explain what had so much puzzled her. He flushed, for he hated to refer to his deformity.

  “No, but they think they can do something to my foot. I couldn’t spare the time before, but now it doesn’t matter so much. I shall start my dressing in October instead of next month. I shall only be in hospital a few weeks and then we can go away to the seaside for the rest of the summer. It’ll do us all good, you and the baby and me.”

  “Oh, let’s go to Brighton, Philip, I like Brighton, you get such a nice class of people there.” Philip had vaguely thought of some little fishing village in Cornwall, but as she spoke it occurred to him that Mildred would be bored to death there.

  “I don’t mind where we go as long as I get the sea.”

  He did not know why, but he had suddenly an irresistible longing for the sea. He wanted to bathe, and he thought with delight of splashing about in the salt water. He was a good swimmer, and nothing exhilarated him like a rough sea.

  “I say, it will be jolly,” he cried.

  “It’ll be like a honeymoon, won’t it?” she said. “How much can I have for my new dress, Phil?”

  XCIV

  Philip asked Mr. Jacobs, the assistant-surgeon for whom he had dressed, to do the operation. Jacobs accepted with pleasure, since he was interested just then in neglected talipes and was getting together materials for a paper. He warned Philip that he could not make his foot like the other, but he thought he could do a good deal; and though he would always limp he would be able to wear a boot less unsightly than that which he had been accustomed to. Philip remembered how he had prayed to a God who was able to remove mountains for him who had faith, and he smiled bitterly.

  “I don’t expect a miracle,” he answered.

  “I think you’re wise to let me try what I can do. You’ll find a club-foot rather a handicap in practice. The layman is full of fads, and he doesn’t like his doctor to have anything the matter with him.”

  Philip went into a ‘small ward’, which was a room on the landing, outside each ward, reserved for special cases. He remained there a month, for the surgeon would not let him go till he could walk; and, bearing the operation very well, he had a pleasant enough time. Lawson and Athelny came to see him, and one day Mrs. Athelny brought two of her children; students whom he knew looked in now and again to have a chat; Mildred came twice a week. Everyone was very kind to him, and Philip, always surprised when anyone took trouble with him, was touched and grateful. He enjoyed the relief from care; he need not worry there about the future, neither whether his money would last out nor whether he would pass his final examinations; and he could read to his heart’s content. He had not been able to read much of late, since Mildred disturbed him: she would make an aimless remark when he was trying to concentrate his attention, and would not be satisfied unless he answered; whenever he was comfortably settled down with a book she would want something done and would come to him with a cork she could not draw or a hammer to drive in a nail.

  They settled to go to Brighton in August. Philip wanted to take lodgings, but Mildred said that she would have to do housekeeping, and it would only be a holiday for her if they went to a boarding-house.

  “I have to see about the food every day at home, I get that sick of it I want a thorough change.”

  Philip agreed, and it happened that Mildred knew of a boarding-house at Kemp Town where they would not be charged more than twenty-five shillings a week each. She arranged with Philip to write about rooms, but when he got back to Kennington he found that she had done nothing. He was irritated.

  “I shouldn’t have thought you had so much to do as all that,” he said.

  “Well, I can’t think of everything. It’s not my fault if I forget, is it?”

  Philip was so anxious to get to the sea that he would not wait to communicate with the mistress of the boarding-house.

  “We’ll leave the luggage at the station and go to the house and see if they’ve got rooms, and if they have we can just send an outside porter for our traps.”

  “You can please yourself,” said Mildred stiffly.

  She did not like being reproached, and, retiring huff
ily into a haughty silence, she sat by listlessly while Philip made the preparations for their departure. The little flat was hot and stuffy under the August sun, and from the road beat up a malodorous sultriness. As he lay in his bed in the small ward with its red, distempered walls he had longed for fresh air and the splashing of the sea against his breast. He felt he would go mad if he had to spend another night in London. Mildred recovered her good temper when she saw the streets of Brighton crowded with people making holiday, and they were both in high spirits as they drove out to Kemp Town. Philip stroked the baby’s cheek.

  “We shall get a very different colour into them when we’ve been down here a few days,” he said, smiling.

  They arrived at the boarding-house and dismissed the cab. An untidy maid opened the door and, when Philip asked if they had rooms, said she would inquire. She fetched her mistress. A middle-aged woman, stout and business-like, came downstairs, gave them the scrutinising glance of her profession, and asked what accommodation they required.

  “Two single rooms, and if you’ve got such a thing we’d rather like a cot in one of them.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t got that. I’ve got one nice large double room, and

  I could let you have a cot.”

  “I don’t think that would do,” said Philip.

  “I could give you another room next week. Brighton’s very full just now, and people have to take what they can get.”

  “If it were only for a few days, Philip, I think we might be able to manage,” said Mildred.

  “I think two rooms would be more convenient. Can you recommend any other place where they take boarders?”

  “I can, but I don’t suppose they’d have room any more than I have.”

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind giving me the address.”

  The house the stout woman suggested was in the next street, and they walked towards it. Philip could walk quite well, though he had to lean on a stick, and he was rather weak. Mildred carried the baby. They went for a little in silence, and then he saw she was crying. It annoyed him, and he took no notice, but she forced his attention.

  “Lend me a hanky, will you? I can’t get at mine with baby,” she said in a voice strangled with sobs, turning her head away from him.

  He gave her his handkerchief, but said nothing. She dried her eyes, and as he did not speak, went on.

  “I might be poisonous.”

  “Please don’t make a scene in the street,” he said.

  “It’ll look so funny insisting on separate rooms like that. What’ll they think of us?”

  “If they knew the circumstances I imagine they’d think us surprisingly moral,” said Philip.

  She gave him a sidelong glance.

  “You’re not going to give it away that we’re not married?” she asked quickly.

  “No.”

  “Why won’t you live with me as if we were married then?”

  “My dear, I can’t explain. I don’t want to humiliate you, but I simply can’t. I daresay it’s very silly and unreasonable, but it’s stronger than I am. I loved you so much that now…” he broke off. “After all, there’s no accounting for that sort of thing.”

  “A fat lot you must have loved me!” she exclaimed.

  The boarding-house to which they had been directed was kept by a bustling maiden lady, with shrewd eyes and voluble speech. They could have one double room for twenty-five shillings a week each, and five shillings extra for the baby, or they could have two single rooms for a pound a week more.

  “I have to charge that much more,” the woman explained apologetically, “because if I’m pushed to it I can put two beds even in the single rooms.”

  “I daresay that won’t ruin us. What do you think, Mildred?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. Anything’s good enough for me,” she answered.

  Philip passed off her sulky reply with a laugh, and, the landlady having arranged to send for their luggage, they sat down to rest themselves. Philip’s foot was hurting him a little, and he was glad to put it up on a chair.

  “I suppose you don’t mind my sitting in the same room with you,” said

  Mildred aggressively.

  “Don’t let’s quarrel, Mildred,” he said gently.

  “I didn’t know you was so well off you could afford to throw away a pound a week.”

  “Don’t be angry with me. I assure you it’s the only way we can live together at all.”

  “I suppose you despise me, that’s it.”

  “Of course I don’t. Why should I?”

  “It’s so unnatural.”

  “Is it? You’re not in love with me, are you?”

  “Me? Who d’you take me for?”

  “It’s not as if you were a very passionate woman, you’re not that.”

  “It’s so humiliating,” she said sulkily.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t fuss about that if I were you.”

  There were about a dozen people in the boarding-house. They ate in a narrow, dark room at a long table, at the head of which the landlady sat and carved. The food was bad. The landlady called it French cooking, by which she meant that the poor quality of the materials was disguised by ill-made sauces: plaice masqueraded as sole and New Zealand mutton as lamb. The kitchen was small and inconvenient, so that everything was served up lukewarm. The people were dull and pretentious; old ladies with elderly maiden daughters; funny old bachelors with mincing ways; pale-faced, middle-aged clerks with wives, who talked of their married daughters and their sons who were in a very good position in the Colonies. At table they discussed Miss Corelli’s latest novel; some of them liked Lord Leighton better than Mr. Alma-Tadema, and some of them liked Mr. Alma-Tadema better than Lord Leighton. Mildred soon told the ladies of her romantic marriage with Philip; and he found himself an object of interest because his family, county people in a very good position, had cut him off with a shilling because he married while he was only a stoodent; and Mildred’s father, who had a large place down Devonshire way, wouldn’t do anything for them because she had married Philip. That was why they had come to a boarding-house and had not a nurse for the baby; but they had to have two rooms because they were both used to a good deal of accommodation and they didn’t care to be cramped. The other visitors also had explanations of their presence: one of the single gentlemen generally went to the Metropole for his holiday, but he liked cheerful company and you couldn’t get that at one of those expensive hotels; and the old lady with the middle-aged daughter was having her beautiful house in London done up and she said to her daughter: “Gwennie, my dear, we must have a cheap holiday this year,” and so they had come there, though of course it wasn’t at all the kind of thing they were used to. Mildred found them all very superior, and she hated a lot of common, rough people. She liked gentlemen to be gentlemen in every sense of the word.

  “When people are gentlemen and ladies,” she said, “I like them to be gentlemen and ladies.”

  The remark seemed cryptic to Philip, but when he heard her say it two or three times to different persons, and found that it aroused hearty agreement, he came to the conclusion that it was only obscure to his own intelligence. It was the first time that Philip and Mildred had been thrown entirely together. In London he did not see her all day, and when he came home the household affairs, the baby, the neighbours, gave them something to talk about till he settled down to work. Now he spent the whole day with her. After breakfast they went down to the beach; the morning went easily enough with a bathe and a stroll along the front; the evening, which they spent on the pier, having put the baby to bed, was tolerable, for there was music to listen to and a constant stream of people to look at; (Philip amused himself by imagining who they were and weaving little stories about them; he had got into the habit of answering Mildred’s remarks with his mouth only so that his thoughts remained undisturbed;) but the afternoons were long and dreary. They sat on the beach. Mildred said they must get all the benefit they could out of Doctor Brighton, and he could not
read because Mildred made observations frequently about things in general. If he paid no attention she complained.

  “Oh, leave that silly old book alone. It can’t be good for you always reading. You’ll addle your brain, that’s what you’ll do, Philip.”

  “Oh, rot!” he answered.

  “Besides, it’s so unsociable.”

  He discovered that it was difficult to talk to her. She had not even the power of attending to what she was herself saying, so that a dog running in front of her or the passing of a man in a loud blazer would call forth a remark and then she would forget what she had been speaking of. She had a bad memory for names, and it irritated her not to be able to think of them, so that she would pause in the middle of some story to rack her brains. Sometimes she had to give it up, but it often occurred to her afterwards, and when Philip was talking of something she would interrupt him.

  “Collins, that was it. I knew it would come back to me some time. Collins, that’s the name I couldn’t remember.”

  It exasperated him because it showed that she was not listening to anything he said, and yet, if he was silent, she reproached him for sulkiness. Her mind was of an order that could not deal for five minutes with the abstract, and when Philip gave way to his taste for generalising she very quickly showed that she was bored. Mildred dreamt a great deal, and she had an accurate memory for her dreams, which she would relate every day with prolixity.

  One morning he received a long letter from Thorpe Athelny. He was taking his holiday in the theatrical way, in which there was much sound sense, which characterised him. He had done the same thing for ten years. He took his whole family to a hop-field in Kent, not far from Mrs. Athelny’s home, and they spent three weeks hopping. It kept them in the open air, earned them money, much to Mrs. Athelny’s satisfaction, and renewed their contact with mother earth. It was upon this that Athelny laid stress. The sojourn in the fields gave them a new strength; it was like a magic ceremony, by which they renewed their youth and the power of their limbs and the sweetness of the spirit: Philip had heard him say many fantastic, rhetorical, and picturesque things on the subject. Now Athelny invited him to come over for a day, he had certain meditations on Shakespeare and the musical glasses which he desired to impart, and the children were clamouring for a sight of Uncle Philip. Philip read the letter again in the afternoon when he was sitting with Mildred on the beach. He thought of Mrs. Athelny, cheerful mother of many children, with her kindly hospitality and her good humour; of Sally, grave for her years, with funny little maternal ways and an air of authority, with her long plait of fair hair and her broad forehead; and then in a bunch of all the others, merry, boisterous, healthy, and handsome. His heart went out to them. There was one quality which they had that he did not remember to have noticed in people before, and that was goodness. It had not occurred to him till now, but it was evidently the beauty of their goodness which attracted him. In theory he did not believe in it: if morality were no more than a matter of convenience good and evil had no meaning. He did not like to be illogical, but here was simple goodness, natural and without effort, and he thought it beautiful. Meditating, he slowly tore the letter into little pieces; he did not see how he could go without Mildred, and he did not want to go with her.