At the end of the year there was a great deal to do. Philip went to
various places with a clerk named Thompson and spent the day
monotonously calling out items of expenditure, which the other checked;
and sometimes he was given long pages of figures to add up. He had
never had a head for figures, and he could only do this slowly.
Thompson grew irritated at his mistakes. His fellow-clerk was a long,
lean man of forty, sallow, with black hair and a ragged moustache; he
had hollow cheeks and deep lines on each side of his nose. He took a
dislike to Philip because he was an articled clerk. Because he could
put down three hundred guineas and keep himself for five years Philip
had the chance of a career; while he, with his experience and ability,
had no possibility of ever being more than a clerk at thirty-five
shillings a week. He was a cross-grained man, oppressed by a large
family, and he resented the superciliousness which he fancied he saw in
Philip. He sneered at Philip because he was better educated than
himself, and he mocked at Philip’s pronunciation; he could not forgive
him because he spoke without a cockney accent, and when he talked to
him sarcastically exaggerated his aitches. At first his manner was
merely gruff and repellent, but as he discovered that Philip had no
gift for accountancy he took pleasure in humiliating him; his attacks
were gross and silly, but they wounded Philip, and in self-defence he
assumed an attitude of superiority which he did not feel.
“Had a bath this morning?” Thompson said when Philip came to the office
late, for his early punctuality had not lasted.
“Yes, haven’t you?”
“No, I’m not a gentleman, I’m only a clerk. I have a bath on Saturday
night.”
“I suppose that’s why you’re more than usually disagreeable on Monday.”
“Will you condescend to do a few sums in simple addition today? I’m
afraid it’s asking a great deal from a gentleman who knows Latin and
Greek.”
“Your attempts at sarcasm are not very happy.”
But Philip could not conceal from himself that the other clerks,
ill-paid and uncouth, were more useful than himself. Once or twice Mr.
Goodworthy grew impatient with him.
“You really ought to be able to do better than this by now,” he said.
“You’re not even as smart as the office-boy.”
Philip listened sulkily. He did not like being blamed, and it
humiliated him, when, having been given accounts to make fair copies
of, Mr. Goodworthy was not satisfied and gave them to another clerk to
do. At first the work had been tolerable from its novelty, but now it
grew irksome; and when he discovered that he had no aptitude for it, he
began to hate it. Often, when he should have been doing something that
was given him, he wasted his time drawing little pictures on the office
note-paper. He made sketches of Watson in every conceivable attitude,
and Watson was impressed by his talent. It occurred to him to take the
drawings home, and he came back next day with the praises of his
family.
“I wonder you didn’t become a painter,” he said. “Only of course
there’s no money in it.”
It chanced that Mr. Carter two or three days later was dining with the
Watsons, and the sketches were shown him. The following morning he sent
for Philip. Philip saw him seldom and stood in some awe of him.
“Look here, young fellow, I don’t care what you do out of office-hours,
but I’ve seen those sketches of yours and they’re on office-paper, and
Mr. Goodworthy tells me you’re slack. You won’t do any good as a
chartered accountant unless you look alive. It’s a fine profession, and
we’re getting a very good class of men in it, but it’s a profession in
which you have to…” he looked for the termination of his phrase, but
could not find exactly what he wanted, so finished rather tamely, “in
which you have to look alive.”
Perhaps Philip would have settled down but for the agreement that if he
did not like the work he could leave after a year, and get back half
the money paid for his articles. He felt that he was fit for something
better than to add up accounts, and it was humiliating that he did so
ill something which seemed contemptible. The vulgar scenes with
Thompson got on his nerves. In March Watson ended his year at the
office and Philip, though he did not care for him, saw him go with
regret. The fact that the other clerks disliked them equally, because
they belonged to a class a little higher than their own, was a bond of
union. When Philip thought that he must spend over four years more with
that dreary set of fellows his heart sank. He had expected wonderful
things from London and it had given him nothing. He hated it now. He
did not know a soul, and he had no idea how he was to get to know
anyone. He was tired of going everywhere by himself. He began to feel
that he could not stand much more of such a life. He would lie in bed
at night and think of the joy of never seeing again that dingy office
or any of the men in it, and of getting away from those drab lodgings.
A great disappointment befell him in the spring. Hayward had announced
his intention of coming to London for the season, and Philip had looked
forward very much to seeing him again. He had read so much lately and
thought so much that his mind was full of ideas which he wanted to
discuss, and he knew nobody who was willing to interest himself in
abstract things. He was quite excited at the thought of talking his
fill with someone, and he was wretched when Hayward wrote to say that
the spring was lovelier than ever he had known it in Italy, and he
could not bear to tear himself away. He went on to ask why Philip did
not come. What was the use of squandering the days of his youth in an
office when the world was beautiful? The letter proceeded.
I wonder you can bear it. I think of Fleet Street and Lincoln’s Inn
now with a shudder of disgust. There are only two things in the world
that make life worth living, love and art. I cannot imagine you
sitting in an office over a ledger, and do you wear a tall hat and an
umbrella and a little black bag? My feeling is that one should look
upon life as an adventure, one should burn with the hard, gem-like
flame, and one should take risks, one should expose oneself to danger.
Why do you not go to Paris and study art? I always thought you had
talent.
The suggestion fell in with the possibility that Philip for some time
had been vaguely turning over in his mind. It startled him at first,
but he could not help thinking of it, and in the constant rumination
over it he found his only escape from the wretchedness of his present
state. They all thought he had talent; at Heidelberg they had admired
his water colours, Miss Wilkinson had told him over and over again that
they were chasing; even strangers like the Watsons had been struck by
his sketches. La Vie de Boheme had made a deep impression on him. He
had brought it to London and when he was most depressed he had only to
read a few pages to be transported into those chasing attics where
Rodolphe and the rest of them danced and loved and sang. He began to
think of Paris as before he had thought of London, but he had no fear
of a second disillusion; he yearned for romance and beauty and love,
and Paris seemed to offer them all. He had a passion for pictures, and
why should he not be able to paint as well as anybody else? He wrote to
Miss Wilkinson and asked her how much she thought he could live on in
Paris. She told him that he could manage easily on eighty pounds a
year, and she enthusiastically approved of his project. She told him he
was too good to be wasted in an office. Who would be a clerk when he
might be a great artist, she asked dramatically, and she besought
Philip to believe in himself: that was the great thing. But Philip had
a cautious nature. It was all very well for Hayward to talk of taking
risks, he had three hundred a year in gilt-edged securities; Philip’s
entire fortune amounted to no more than eighteen-hundred pounds. He
hesitated.
Then it chanced that one day Mr. Goodworthy asked him suddenly if he
would like to go to Paris. The firm did the accounts for a hotel in the
Faubourg St. Honore, which was owned by an English company, and twice a
year Mr. Goodworthy and a clerk went over. The clerk who generally went
happened to be ill, and a press of work prevented any of the others
from getting away. Mr. Goodworthy thought of Philip because he could
best be spared, and his articles gave him some claim upon a job which
was one of the pleasures of the business. Philip was delighted.
“You’ll ’ave to work all day,” said Mr. Goodworthy, “but we get our
evenings to ourselves, and Paris is Paris.” He smiled in a knowing way.
“They do us very well at the hotel, and they give us all our meals, so
it don’t cost one anything. That’s the way I like going to Paris, at
other people’s expense.”
When they arrived at Calais and Philip saw the crowd of gesticulating
porters his heart leaped.
“This is the real thing,” he said to himself.
He was all eyes as the train sped through the country; he adored the
sand dunes, their colour seemed to him more lovely than anything he had
ever seen; and he was enchanted with the canals and the long lines of
poplars. When they got out of the Gare du Nord, and trundled along the
cobbled streets in a ramshackle, noisy cab, it seemed to him that he
was breathing a new air so intoxicating that he could hardly restrain
himself from shouting aloud. They were met at the door of the hotel by
the manager, a stout, pleasant man, who spoke tolerable English; Mr.
Goodworthy was an old friend and he greeted them effusively; they dined
in his private room with his wife, and to Philip it seemed that he had
never eaten anything so delicious as the beefsteak aux pommes, nor
drunk such nectar as the vin ordinaire, which were set before them.
To Mr. Goodworthy, a respectable householder with excellent principles,
the capital of France was a paradise of the joyously obscene. He asked
the manager next morning what there was to be seen that was ‘thick.’ He
thoroughly enjoyed these visits of his to Paris; he said they kept you
from growing rusty. In the evenings, after their work was over and they
had dined, he took Philip to the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergeres.
His little eyes twinkled and his face wore a sly, sensual smile as he
sought out the pornographic. He went into all the haunts which were
specially arranged for the foreigner, and afterwards said that a nation
could come to no good which permitted that sort of thing. He nudged
Philip when at some revue a woman appeared with practically nothing on,
and pointed out to him the most strapping of the courtesans who walked
about the hall. It was a vulgar Paris that he showed Philip, but Philip
saw it with eyes blinded with illusion. In the early morning he would
rush out of the hotel and go to the Champs Elysees, and stand at the
Place de la Concorde. It was June, and Paris was silvery with the
delicacy of the air. Philip felt his heart go out to the people. Here
he thought at last was romance.
They spent the inside of a week there, leaving on Sunday, and when
Philip late at night reached his dingy rooms in Barnes his mind was
made up; he would surrender his articles, and go to Paris to study art;
but so that no one should think him unreasonable he determined to stay
at the office till his year was up. He was to have his holiday during
the last fortnight in August, and when he went away he would tell
Herbert Carter that he had no intention of returning. But though Philip
could force himself to go to the office every day he could not even
pretend to show any interest in the work. His mind was occupied with
the future. After the middle of July there was nothing much to do and
he escaped a good deal by pretending he had to go to lectures for his
first examination. The time he got in this way he spent in the National
Gallery. He read books about Paris and books about painting. He was
steeped in Ruskin. He read many of Vasari’s lives of the painters. He
liked that story of Correggio, and he fancied himself standing before
some great masterpiece and crying: Anch’ io son’ pittore. His
hesitation had left him now, and he was convinced that he had in him
the makings of a great painter.
“After all, I can only try,” he said to himself. “The great thing in
life is to take risks.”
At last came the middle of August. Mr. Carter was spending the month in
Scotland, and the managing clerk was in charge of the office. Mr.
Goodworthy had seemed pleasantly disposed to Philip since their trip to
Paris, and now that Philip knew he was so soon to be free, he could
look upon the funny little man with tolerance.
“You’re going for your holiday tomorrow, Carey?” he said to him in the
evening.
All day Philip had been telling himself that this was the last time he
would ever sit in that hateful office.
“Yes, this is the end of my year.”
“I’m afraid you’ve not done very well. Mr. Carter’s very dissatisfied
with you.”
“Not nearly so dissatisfied as I am with Mr. Carter,” returned Philip
cheerfully.
“I don’t think you should speak like that, Carey.”
“I’m not coming back. I made the arrangement that if I didn’t like
accountancy Mr. Carter would return me half the money I paid for my
articles and I could chuck it at the end of a year.”
“You shouldn’t come to such a decision hastily.”
“For ten months I’ve loathed it all, I’ve loathed the work, I’ve
loathed the office, I loathe London. I’d rather sweep a crossing than
spend my days here.”
“Well, I must say, I don’t think you’re very fitted for accountancy.”
“Good-bye,” said Philip, holding out his hand. “I want to thank you for
your kindness to me. I’m sorry if I’ve been troublesome. I knew almost
from the beginning I was no good.”
“Well, if you really do make up your mind it is good-bye. I don’t know
what you’re going to do, but if you’re in the neighbourhood at any time
come in and see us.”
Philip gave a little laugh.
“I’m afraid it sounds very rude, but I hope from the bottom of my heart
that I shall never set eyes on any of you again.”