Next day Philip arrived at Blackstable. Since the death of his mother
he had never lost anyone closely connected with him; his aunt’s death
shocked him and filled him also with a curious fear; he felt for the
first time his own mortality. He could not realise what life would be
for his uncle without the constant companionship of the woman who had
loved and tended him for forty years. He expected to find him broken
down with hopeless grief. He dreaded the first meeting; he knew that he
could say nothing which would be of use. He rehearsed to himself a
number of apposite speeches.
He entered the vicarage by the side-door and went into the dining-room.
Uncle William was reading the paper.
“Your train was late,” he said, looking up.
Philip was prepared to give way to his emotion, but the matter-of-fact
reception startled him. His uncle, subdued but calm, handed him the
paper.
“There’s a very nice little paragraph about her in The Blackstable
Times,” he said.
Philip read it mechanically.
“Would you like to come up and see her?”
Philip nodded and together they walked upstairs. Aunt Louisa was lying
in the middle of the large bed, with flowers all round her.
“Would you like to say a short prayer?” said the Vicar.
He sank on his knees, and because it was expected of him Philip
followed his example. He looked at the little shrivelled face. He was
only conscious of one emotion: what a wasted life! In a minute Mr.
Carey gave a cough, and stood up. He pointed to a wreath at the foot of
the bed.
“That’s from the Squire,” he said. He spoke in a low voice as though he
were in church, but one felt that, as a clergyman, he found himself
quite at home. “I expect tea is ready.”
They went down again to the dining-room. The drawn blinds gave a
lugubrious aspect. The Vicar sat at the end of the table at which his
wife had always sat and poured out the tea with ceremony. Philip could
not help feeling that neither of them should have been able to eat
anything, but when he saw that his uncle’s appetite was unimpaired he
fell to with his usual heartiness. They did not speak for a while.
Philip set himself to eat an excellent cake with the air of grief which
he felt was decent.
“Things have changed a great deal since I was a curate,” said the Vicar
presently. “In my young days the mourners used always to be given a
pair of black gloves and a piece of black silk for their hats. Poor
Louisa used to make the silk into dresses. She always said that twelve
funerals gave her a new dress.”
Then he told Philip who had sent wreaths; there were twenty-four of
them already; when Mrs. Rawlingson, wife of the Vicar at Ferne, had
died she had had thirty-two; but probably a good many more would come
the next day; the funeral would start at eleven o’clock from the
vicarage, and they should beat Mrs. Rawlingson easily. Louisa never
liked Mrs. Rawlingson.
“I shall take the funeral myself. I promised Louisa I would never let
anyone else bury her.”
Philip looked at his uncle with disapproval when he took a second piece
of cake. Under the circumstances he could not help thinking it greedy.
“Mary Ann certainly makes capital cakes. I’m afraid no one else will
make such good ones.”
“She’s not going?” cried Philip, with astonishment.
Mary Ann had been at the vicarage ever since he could remember. She
never forgot his birthday, but made a point always of sending him a
trifle, absurd but touching. He had a real affection for her.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Carey. “I didn’t think it would do to have a single
woman in the house.”
“But, good heavens, she must be over forty.”
“Yes, I think she is. But she’s been rather troublesome lately, she’s
been inclined to take too much on herself, and I thought this was a
very good opportunity to give her notice.”
“It’s certainly one which isn’t likely to recur,” said Philip.
He took out a cigarette, but his uncle prevented him from lighting it.
“Not till after the funeral, Philip,” he said gently.
“All right,” said Philip.
“It wouldn’t be quite respectful to smoke in the house so long as your
poor Aunt Louisa is upstairs.”
Josiah Graves, churchwarden and manager of the bank, came back to
dinner at the vicarage after the funeral. The blinds had been drawn up,
and Philip, against his will, felt a curious sensation of relief. The
body in the house had made him uncomfortable: in life the poor woman
had been all that was kind and gentle; and yet, when she lay upstairs
in her bed-room, cold and stark, it seemed as though she cast upon the
survivors a baleful influence. The thought horrified Philip.
He found himself alone for a minute or two in the dining-room with the
churchwarden.
“I hope you’ll be able to stay with your uncle a while,” he said. “I
don’t think he ought to be left alone just yet.”
“I haven’t made any plans,” answered Philip. “If he wants me I shall be
very pleased to stay.”
By way of cheering the bereaved husband the churchwarden during dinner
talked of a recent fire at Blackstable which had partly destroyed the
Wesleyan chapel.
“I hear they weren’t insured,” he said, with a little smile.
“That won’t make any difference,” said the Vicar. “They’ll get as much
money as they want to rebuild. Chapel people are always ready to give
money.”
“I see that Holden sent a wreath.”
Holden was the dissenting minister, and, though for Christ’s sake who
died for both of them, Mr. Carey nodded to him in the street, he did
not speak to him.
“I think it was very pushing,” he remarked. “There were forty-one
wreaths. Yours was beautiful. Philip and I admired it very much.”
“Don’t mention it,” said the banker.
He had noticed with satisfaction that it was larger than anyone’s else.
It had looked very well. They began to discuss the people who attended
the funeral. Shops had been closed for it, and the churchwarden took
out of his pocket the notice which had been printed: “Owing to the
funeral of Mrs. Carey this establishment will not be opened till one
o’clock.”
“It was my idea,” he said.
“I think it was very nice of them to close,” said the Vicar. “Poor
Louisa would have appreciated that.”
Philip ate his dinner. Mary Ann had treated the day as Sunday, and they
had roast chicken and a gooseberry tart.
“I suppose you haven’t thought about a tombstone yet?” said the
churchwarden.
“Yes, I have. I thought of a plain stone cross. Louisa was always
against ostentation.”
“I don’t think one can do much better than a cross. If you’re thinking
of a text, what do you say to: With Christ, which is far better?”
The Vicar pursed his lips. It was just like Bismarck to try and settle
everything himself. He did not like that text; it seemed to cast an
aspersion on himself.
“I don’t think I should put that. I much prefer: The Lord has given and
the Lord has taken away.”
“Oh, do you? That always seems to me a little indifferent.”
The Vicar answered with some acidity, and Mr. Graves replied in a tone
which the widower thought too authoritative for the occasion. Things
were going rather far if he could not choose his own text for his own
wife’s tombstone. There was a pause, and then the conversation drifted
to parish matters. Philip went into the garden to smoke his pipe. He
sat on a bench, and suddenly began to laugh hysterically.
A few days later his uncle expressed the hope that he would spend the
next few weeks at Blackstable.
“Yes, that will suit me very well,” said Philip.
“I suppose it’ll do if you go back to Paris in September.”
Philip did not reply. He had thought much of what Foinet said to him,
but he was still so undecided that he did not wish to speak of the
future. There would be something fine in giving up art because he was
convinced that he could not excel; but unfortunately it would seem so
only to himself: to others it would be an admission of defeat, and he
did not want to confess that he was beaten. He was an obstinate fellow,
and the suspicion that his talent did not lie in one direction made him
inclined to force circumstances and aim notwithstanding precisely in
that direction. He could not bear that his friends should laugh at him.
This might have prevented him from ever taking the definite step of
abandoning the study of painting, but the different environment made
him on a sudden see things differently. Like many another he discovered
that crossing the Channel makes things which had seemed important
singularly futile. The life which had been so charming that he could
not bear to leave it now seemed inept; he was seized with a distaste
for the cafes, the restaurants with their ill-cooked food, the shabby
way in which they all lived. He did not care any more what his friends
thought about him: Cronshaw with his rhetoric, Mrs. Otter with her
respectability, Ruth Chalice with her affectations, Lawson and Clutton
with their quarrels; he felt a revulsion from them all. He wrote to
Lawson and asked him to send over all his belongings. A week later they
arrived. When he unpacked his canvases he found himself able to examine
his work without emotion. He noticed the fact with interest. His uncle
was anxious to see his pictures. Though he had so greatly disapproved
of Philip’s desire to go to Paris, he accepted the situation now with
equanimity. He was interested in the life of students and constantly
put Philip questions about it. He was in fact a little proud of him
because he was a painter, and when people were present made attempts to
draw him out. He looked eagerly at the studies of models which Philip
showed him. Philip set before him his portrait of Miguel Ajuria.
“Why did you paint him?” asked Mr. Carey.
“Oh, I wanted a model, and his head interested me.”
“As you haven’t got anything to do here I wonder you don’t paint me.”
“It would bore you to sit.”
“I think I should like it.”
“We must see about it.”
Philip was amused at his uncle’s vanity. It was clear that he was dying
to have his portrait painted. To get something for nothing was a chance
not to be missed. For two or three days he threw out little hints. He
reproached Philip for laziness, asked him when he was going to start
work, and finally began telling everyone he met that Philip was going
to paint him. At last there came a rainy day, and after breakfast Mr.
Carey said to Philip:
“Now, what d’you say to starting on my portrait this morning?” Philip
put down the book he was reading and leaned back in his chair.
“I’ve given up painting,” he said.
“Why?” asked his uncle in astonishment.
“I don’t think there’s much object in being a second-rate painter, and
I came to the conclusion that I should never be anything else.”
“You surprise me. Before you went to Paris you were quite certain that
you were a genius.”
“I was mistaken,” said Philip.
“I should have thought now you’d taken up a profession you’d have the
pride to stick to it. It seems to me that what you lack is
perseverance.”
Philip was a little annoyed that his uncle did not even see how truly
heroic his determination was.
“‘A rolling stone gathers no moss,’” proceeded the clergyman. Philip
hated that proverb above all, and it seemed to him perfectly
meaningless. His uncle had repeated it often during the arguments which
had preceded his departure from business. Apparently it recalled that
occasion to his guardian.
“You’re no longer a boy, you know; you must begin to think of settling
down. First you insist on becoming a chartered accountant, and then you
get tired of that and you want to become a painter. And now if you
please you change your mind again. It points to…”
He hesitated for a moment to consider what defects of character exactly
it indicated, and Philip finished the sentence.
“Irresolution, incompetence, want of foresight, and lack of
determination.”
The Vicar looked up at his nephew quickly to see whether he was
laughing at him. Philip’s face was serious, but there was a twinkle in
his eyes which irritated him. Philip should really be getting more
serious. He felt it right to give him a rap over the knuckles.
“Your money matters have nothing to do with me now. You’re your own
master; but I think you should remember that your money won’t last for
ever, and the unlucky deformity you have doesn’t exactly make it easier
for you to earn your living.”
Philip knew by now that whenever anyone was angry with him his first
thought was to say something about his club-foot. His estimate of the
human race was determined by the fact that scarcely anyone failed to
resist the temptation. But he had trained himself not to show any sign
that the reminder wounded him. He had even acquired control over the
blushing which in his boyhood had been one of his torments.
“As you justly remark,” he answered, “my money matters have nothing to
do with you and I am my own master.”
“At all events you will do me the justice to acknowledge that I was
justified in my opposition when you made up your mind to become an
art-student.”
“I don’t know so much about that. I daresay one profits more by the
mistakes one makes off one’s own bat than by doing the right thing on
somebody’s else advice. I’ve had my fling, and I don’t mind settling
down now.”
“What at?”
Philip was not prepared for the question, since in fact he had not made
up his mind. He had thought of a dozen callings.
“The most suitable thing you could do is to enter your father’s
profession and become a doctor.”
“Oddly enough that is precisely what I intend.”
He had thought of doctoring among other things, chiefly because it was
an occupation which seemed to give a good deal of personal freedom, and
his experience of life in an office had made him determine never to
have anything more to do with one; his answer to the Vicar slipped out
almost unawares, because it was in the nature of a repartee. It amused
him to make up his mind in that accidental way, and he resolved then
and there to enter his father’s old hospital in the autumn.
“Then your two years in Paris may be regarded as so much wasted time?”
“I don’t know about that. I had a very jolly two years, and I learned
one or two useful things.”
“What?”
Philip reflected for an instant, and his answer was not devoid of a
gentle desire to annoy.
“I learned to look at hands, which I’d never looked at before. And
instead of just looking at houses and trees I learned to look at houses
and trees against the sky. And I learned also that shadows are not
black but coloured.”
“I suppose you think you’re very clever. I think your flippancy is
quite inane.”