IV

Philip parted from Emma with tears, but the journey to Blackstable

amused him, and, when they arrived, he was resigned and cheerful.

Blackstable was sixty miles from London. Giving their luggage to a

porter, Mr. Carey set out to walk with Philip to the vicarage; it took

them little more than five minutes, and, when they reached it, Philip

suddenly remembered the gate. It was red and five-barred: it swung both

ways on easy hinges; and it was possible, though forbidden, to swing

backwards and forwards on it. They walked through the garden to the

front-door. This was only used by visitors and on Sundays, and on

special occasions, as when the Vicar went up to London or came back.

The traffic of the house took place through a side-door, and there was

a back door as well for the gardener and for beggars and tramps. It was

a fairly large house of yellow brick, with a red roof, built about five

and twenty years before in an ecclesiastical style. The front-door was

like a church porch, and the drawing-room windows were gothic.

Mrs. Carey, knowing by what train they were coming, waited in the

drawing-room and listened for the click of the gate. When she heard it

she went to the door.

“There’s Aunt Louisa,” said Mr. Carey, when he saw her. “Run and give

her a kiss.”

Philip started to run, awkwardly, trailing his club-foot, and then

stopped. Mrs. Carey was a little, shrivelled woman of the same age as

her husband, with a face extraordinarily filled with deep wrinkles, and

pale blue eyes. Her gray hair was arranged in ringlets according to the

fashion of her youth. She wore a black dress, and her only ornament was

a gold chain, from which hung a cross. She had a shy manner and a

gentle voice.

“Did you walk, William?” she said, almost reproachfully, as she kissed

her husband.

“I didn’t think of it,” he answered, with a glance at his nephew.

“It didn’t hurt you to walk, Philip, did it?” she asked the child.

“No. I always walk.”

He was a little surprised at their conversation. Aunt Louisa told him

to come in, and they entered the hall. It was paved with red and yellow

tiles, on which alternately were a Greek Cross and the Lamb of God. An

imposing staircase led out of the hall. It was of polished pine, with a

peculiar smell, and had been put in because fortunately, when the

church was reseated, enough wood remained over. The balusters were

decorated with emblems of the Four Evangelists.

“I’ve had the stove lighted as I thought you’d be cold after your

journey,” said Mrs. Carey.

It was a large black stove that stood in the hall and was only lighted

if the weather was very bad and the Vicar had a cold. It was not

lighted if Mrs. Carey had a cold. Coal was expensive. Besides, Mary

Ann, the maid, didn’t like fires all over the place. If they wanted all

them fires they must keep a second girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs.

Carey lived in the dining-room so that one fire should do, and in the

summer they could not get out of the habit, so the drawing-room was

used only by Mr. Carey on Sunday afternoons for his nap. But every

Saturday he had a fire in the study so that he could write his sermon.

Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into a tiny bed-room

that looked out on the drive. Immediately in front of the window was a

large tree, which Philip remembered now because the branches were so

low that it was possible to climb quite high up it.

“A small room for a small boy,” said Mrs. Carey. “You won’t be

frightened at sleeping alone?”

“Oh, no.”

On his first visit to the vicarage he had come with his nurse, and Mrs.

Carey had had little to do with him. She looked at him now with some

uncertainty.

“Can you wash your own hands, or shall I wash them for you?”

“I can wash myself,” he answered firmly.

“Well, I shall look at them when you come down to tea,” said Mrs.

Carey.

She knew nothing about children. After it was settled that Philip

should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she

should treat him; she was anxious to do her duty; but now he was there

she found herself just as shy of him as he was of her. She hoped he

would not be noisy and rough, because her husband did not like rough

and noisy boys. Mrs. Carey made an excuse to leave Philip alone, but in

a moment came back and knocked at the door; she asked him, without

coming in, if he could pour out the water himself. Then she went

downstairs and rang the bell for tea.

The dining-room, large and well-proportioned, had windows on two sides

of it, with heavy curtains of red rep; there was a big table in the

middle; and at one end an imposing mahogany sideboard with a

looking-glass in it. In one corner stood a harmonium. On each side of

the fireplace were chairs covered in stamped leather, each with an

antimacassar; one had arms and was called the husband, and the other

had none and was called the wife. Mrs. Carey never sat in the

arm-chair: she said she preferred a chair that was not too comfortable;

there was always a lot to do, and if her chair had had arms she might

not be so ready to leave it.

Mr. Carey was making up the fire when Philip came in, and he pointed

out to his nephew that there were two pokers. One was large and bright

and polished and unused, and was called the Vicar; and the other, which

was much smaller and had evidently passed through many fires, was

called the Curate.

“What are we waiting for?” said Mr. Carey.

“I told Mary Ann to make you an egg. I thought you’d be hungry after

your journey.”

Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Blackstable very tiring.

She seldom travelled herself, for the living was only three hundred a

year, and, when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money

for two, he went by himself. He was very fond of Church Congresses and

usually managed to go up to London once a year; and once he had been to

Paris for the exhibition, and two or three times to Switzerland. Mary

Ann brought in the egg, and they sat down. The chair was much too low

for Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey nor his wife knew what

to do.

“I’ll put some books under him,” said Mary Ann.

She took from the top of the harmonium the large Bible and the

prayer-book from which the Vicar was accustomed to read prayers, and

put them on Philip’s chair.

“Oh, William, he can’t sit on the Bible,” said Mrs. Carey, in a shocked

tone. “Couldn’t you get him some books out of the study?”

Mr. Carey considered the question for an instant.

“I don’t think it matters this once if you put the prayer-book on the

top, Mary Ann,” he said. “The book of Common Prayer is the composition

of men like ourselves. It has no claim to divine authorship.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, William,” said Aunt Louisa.

Philip perched himself on the books, and the Vicar, having said grace,

cut the top off his egg.

“There,” he said, handing it to Philip, “you can eat my top if you

like.”

Philip would have liked an egg to himself, but he was not offered one,

so took what he could.

“How have the chickens been laying since I went away?” asked the Vicar.

“Oh, they’ve been dreadful, only one or two a day.”

“How did you like that top, Philip?” asked his uncle.

“Very much, thank you.”

“You shall have another one on Sunday afternoon.”

Mr. Carey always had a boiled egg at tea on Sunday, so that he might be

fortified for the evening service.

V

Philip came gradually to know the people he was to live with, and by

fragments of conversation, some of it not meant for his ears, learned a

good deal both about himself and about his dead parents. Philip’s

father had been much younger than the Vicar of Blackstable. After a

brilliant career at St. Luke’s Hospital he was put on the staff, and

presently began to earn money in considerable sums. He spent it freely.

When the parson set about restoring his church and asked his brother

for a subscription, he was surprised by receiving a couple of hundred

pounds: Mr. Carey, thrifty by inclination and economical by necessity,

accepted it with mingled feelings; he was envious of his brother

because he could afford to give so much, pleased for the sake of his

church, and vaguely irritated by a generosity which seemed almost

ostentatious. Then Henry Carey married a patient, a beautiful girl but

penniless, an orphan with no near relations, but of good family; and

there was an array of fine friends at the wedding. The parson, on his

visits to her when he came to London, held himself with reserve. He

felt shy with her and in his heart he resented her great beauty: she

dressed more magnificently than became the wife of a hardworking

surgeon; and the charming furniture of her house, the flowers among

which she lived even in winter, suggested an extravagance which he

deplored. He heard her talk of entertainments she was going to; and, as

he told his wife on getting home again, it was impossible to accept

hospitality without making some return. He had seen grapes in the

dining-room that must have cost at least eight shillings a pound; and

at luncheon he had been given asparagus two months before it was ready

in the vicarage garden. Now all he had anticipated was come to pass:

the Vicar felt the satisfaction of the prophet who saw fire and

brimstone consume the city which would not mend its way to his warning.

Poor Philip was practically penniless, and what was the good of his

mother’s fine friends now? He heard that his father’s extravagance was

really criminal, and it was a mercy that Providence had seen fit to

take his dear mother to itself: she had no more idea of money than a

child.

When Philip had been a week at Blackstable an incident happened which

seemed to irritate his uncle very much. One morning he found on the

breakfast table a small packet which had been sent on by post from the

late Mrs. Carey’s house in London. It was addressed to her. When the

parson opened it he found a dozen photographs of Mrs. Carey. They

showed the head and shoulders only, and her hair was more plainly done

than usual, low on the forehead, which gave her an unusual look; the

face was thin and worn, but no illness could impair the beauty of her

features. There was in the large dark eyes a sadness which Philip did

not remember. The first sight of the dead woman gave Mr. Carey a little

shock, but this was quickly followed by perplexity. The photographs

seemed quite recent, and he could not imagine who had ordered them.

“D’you know anything about these, Philip?” he asked.

“I remember mamma said she’d been taken,” he answered. “Miss Watkin

scolded her…. She said: I wanted the boy to have something to remember

me by when he grows up.”

Mr. Carey looked at Philip for an instant. The child spoke in a clear

treble. He recalled the words, but they meant nothing to him.

“You’d better take one of the photographs and keep it in your room,”

said Mr. Carey. “I’ll put the others away.”

He sent one to Miss Watkin, and she wrote and explained how they came

to be taken.

One day Mrs. Carey was lying in bed, but she was feeling a little

better than usual, and the doctor in the morning had seemed hopeful;

Emma had taken the child out, and the maids were downstairs in the

basement: suddenly Mrs. Carey felt desperately alone in the world. A

great fear seized her that she would not recover from the confinement

which she was expecting in a fortnight. Her son was nine years old. How

could he be expected to remember her? She could not bear to think that

he would grow up and forget, forget her utterly; and she had loved him

so passionately, because he was weakly and deformed, and because he was

her child. She had no photographs of herself taken since her marriage,

and that was ten years before. She wanted her son to know what she

looked like at the end. He could not forget her then, not forget

utterly. She knew that if she called her maid and told her she wanted

to get up, the maid would prevent her, and perhaps send for the doctor,

and she had not the strength now to struggle or argue. She got out of

bed and began to dress herself. She had been on her back so long that

her legs gave way beneath her, and then the soles of her feet tingled

so that she could hardly bear to put them to the ground. But she went

on. She was unused to doing her own hair and, when she raised her arms

and began to brush it, she felt faint. She could never do it as her

maid did. It was beautiful hair, very fine, and of a deep rich gold.

Her eyebrows were straight and dark. She put on a black skirt, but

chose the bodice of the evening dress which she liked best: it was of a

white damask which was fashionable in those days. She looked at herself

in the glass. Her face was very pale, but her skin was clear: she had

never had much colour, and this had always made the redness of her

beautiful mouth emphatic. She could not restrain a sob. But she could

not afford to be sorry for herself; she was feeling already desperately

tired; and she put on the furs which Henry had given her the Christmas

before—she had been so proud of them and so happy then—and slipped

downstairs with beating heart. She got safely out of the house and

drove to a photographer. She paid for a dozen photographs. She was

obliged to ask for a glass of water in the middle of the sitting; and

the assistant, seeing she was ill, suggested that she should come

another day, but she insisted on staying till the end. At last it was

finished, and she drove back again to the dingy little house in

Kensington which she hated with all her heart. It was a horrible house

to die in.

She found the front door open, and when she drove up the maid and Emma

ran down the steps to help her. They had been frightened when they

found her room empty. At first they thought she must have gone to Miss

Watkin, and the cook was sent round. Miss Watkin came back with her and

was waiting anxiously in the drawing-room. She came downstairs now full

of anxiety and reproaches; but the exertion had been more than Mrs.

Carey was fit for, and when the occasion for firmness no longer existed

she gave way. She fell heavily into Emma’s arms and was carried

upstairs. She remained unconscious for a time that seemed incredibly

long to those that watched her, and the doctor, hurriedly sent for, did

not come. It was next day, when she was a little better, that Miss

Watkin got some explanation out of her. Philip was playing on the floor

of his mother’s bed-room, and neither of the ladies paid attention to

him. He only understood vaguely what they were talking about, and he

could not have said why those words remained in his memory.

“I wanted the boy to have something to remember me by when he grows

up.”

“I can’t make out why she ordered a dozen,” said Mr. Carey. “Two would

have done.”