The following day was Tuesday. Philip as usual hurried through his
breakfast and dashed off to get to his lecture at nine. He had only
time to exchange a few words with Mildred. When he came back in the
evening he found her seated at the window, darning his socks.
“I say, you are industrious,” he smiled. “What have you been doing with
yourself all day?”
“Oh, I gave the place a good cleaning and then I took baby out for a
little.”
She was wearing an old black dress, the same as she had worn as uniform
when she served in the tea-shop; it was shabby, but she looked better
in it than in the silk of the day before. The baby was sitting on the
floor. She looked up at Philip with large, mysterious eyes and broke
into a laugh when he sat down beside her and began playing with her
bare toes. The afternoon sun came into the room and shed a mellow
light.
“It’s rather jolly to come back and find someone about the place. A
woman and a baby make very good decoration in a room.”
He had gone to the hospital dispensary and got a bottle of Blaud’s
Pills, He gave them to Mildred and told her she must take them after
each meal. It was a remedy she was used to, for she had taken it off
and on ever since she was sixteen.
“I’m sure Lawson would love that green skin of yours,” said Philip.
“He’d say it was so paintable, but I’m terribly matter of fact
nowadays, and I shan’t be happy till you’re as pink and white as a
milkmaid.”
“I feel better already.”
After a frugal supper Philip filled his pouch with tobacco and put on
his hat. It was on Tuesdays that he generally went to the tavern in
Beak Street, and he was glad that this day came so soon after Mildred’s
arrival, for he wanted to make his relations with her perfectly clear.
“Are you going out?” she said.
“Yes, on Tuesdays I give myself a night off. I shall see you tomorrow.
Good-night.”
Philip always went to the tavern with a sense of pleasure. Macalister,
the philosophic stockbroker, was generally there and glad to argue upon
any subject under the sun; Hayward came regularly when he was in
London; and though he and Macalister disliked one another they
continued out of habit to meet on that one evening in the week.
Macalister thought Hayward a poor creature, and sneered at his
delicacies of sentiment: he asked satirically about Hayward’s literary
work and received with scornful smiles his vague suggestions of future
masterpieces; their arguments were often heated; but the punch was
good, and they were both fond of it; towards the end of the evening
they generally composed their differences and thought each other
capital fellows. This evening Philip found them both there, and Lawson
also; Lawson came more seldom now that he was beginning to know people
in London and went out to dinner a good deal. They were all on
excellent terms with themselves, for Macalister had given them a good
thing on the Stock Exchange, and Hayward and Lawson had made fifty
pounds apiece. It was a great thing for Lawson, who was extravagant and
earned little money: he had arrived at that stage of the
portrait-painter’s career when he was noticed a good deal by the
critics and found a number of aristocratic ladies who were willing to
allow him to paint them for nothing (it advertised them both, and gave
the great ladies quite an air of patronesses of the arts); but he very
seldom got hold of the solid philistine who was ready to pay good money
for a portrait of his wife. Lawson was brimming over with satisfaction.
“It’s the most ripping way of making money that I’ve ever struck,” he
cried. “I didn’t have to put my hand in my pocket for sixpence.”
“You lost something by not being here last Tuesday, young man,” said
Macalister to Philip.
“My God, why didn’t you write to me?” said Philip. “If you only knew
how useful a hundred pounds would be to me.”
“Oh, there wasn’t time for that. One has to be on the spot. I heard of
a good thing last Tuesday, and I asked these fellows if they’d like to
have a flutter, I bought them a thousand shares on Wednesday morning,
and there was a rise in the afternoon so I sold them at once. I made
fifty pounds for each of them and a couple of hundred for myself.”
Philip was sick with envy. He had recently sold the last mortgage in
which his small fortune had been invested and now had only six hundred
pounds left. He was panic-stricken sometimes when he thought of the
future. He had still to keep himself for two years before he could be
qualified, and then he meant to try for hospital appointments, so that
he could not expect to earn anything for three years at least. With the
most rigid economy he would not have more than a hundred pounds left
then. It was very little to have as a stand-by in case he was ill and
could not earn money or found himself at any time without work. A lucky
gamble would make all the difference to him.
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” said Macalister. “Something is sure to
turn up soon. There’ll be a boom in South Africans again one of these
days, and then I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Macalister was in the Kaffir market and often told them stories of the
sudden fortunes that had been made in the great boom of a year or two
back.
“Well, don’t forget next time.”
They sat on talking till nearly midnight, and Philip, who lived
furthest off, was the first to go. If he did not catch the last tram he
had to walk, and that made him very late. As it was he did not reach
home till nearly half past twelve. When he got upstairs he was
surprised to find Mildred still sitting in his arm-chair.
“Why on earth aren’t you in bed?” he cried.
“I wasn’t sleepy.”
“You ought to go to bed all the same. It would rest you.”
She did not move. He noticed that since supper she had changed into her
black silk dress.
“I thought I’d rather wait up for you in case you wanted anything.”
She looked at him, and the shadow of a smile played upon her thin pale
lips. Philip was not sure whether he understood or not. He was
slightly embarrassed, but assumed a cheerful, matter-of-fact air.
“It’s very nice of you, but it’s very naughty also. Run off to bed as
fast as you can, or you won’t be able to get up tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t feel like going to bed.”
“Nonsense,” he said coldly.
She got up, a little sulkily, and went into her room. He smiled when he
heard her lock the door loudly.
The next few days passed without incident. Mildred settled down in her
new surroundings. When Philip hurried off after breakfast she had the
whole morning to do the housework. They ate very simply, but she liked
to take a long time to buy the few things they needed; she could not be
bothered to cook anything for her dinner, but made herself some cocoa
and ate bread and butter; then she took the baby out in the gocart, and
when she came in spent the rest of the afternoon in idleness. She was
tired out, and it suited her to do so little. She made friends with
Philip’s forbidding landlady over the rent, which he left with Mildred
to pay, and within a week was able to tell him more about his
neighbours than he had learned in a year.
“She’s a very nice woman,” said Mildred. “Quite the lady. I told her we
was married.”
“D’you think that was necessary?”
“Well, I had to tell her something. It looks so funny me being here and
not married to you. I didn’t know what she’d think of me.”
“I don’t suppose she believed you for a moment.”
“That she did, I lay. I told her we’d been married two years—I had to
say that, you know, because of baby—only your people wouldn’t hear of
it, because you was only a student”—she pronounced it stoodent—“and so
we had to keep it a secret, but they’d given way now and we were all
going down to stay with them in the summer.”
“You’re a past mistress of the cock-and-bull story,” said Philip.
He was vaguely irritated that Mildred still had this passion for
telling fibs. In the last two years she had learnt nothing. But he
shrugged his shoulders.
“When all’s said and done,” he reflected, “she hasn’t had much chance.”
It was a beautiful evening, warm and cloudless, and the people of South
London seemed to have poured out into the streets. There was that
restlessness in the air which seizes the cockney sometimes when a turn
in the weather calls him into the open. After Mildred had cleared away
the supper she went and stood at the window. The street noises came up
to them, noises of people calling to one another, of the passing
traffic, of a barrel-organ in the distance.
“I suppose you must work tonight, Philip?” she asked him, with a
wistful expression.
“I ought, but I don’t know that I must. Why, d’you want me to do
anything else?”
“I’d like to go out for a bit. Couldn’t we take a ride on the top of a
tram?”
“If you like.”
“I’ll just go and put on my hat,” she said joyfully.
The night made it almost impossible to stay indoors. The baby was
asleep and could be safely left; Mildred said she had always left it
alone at night when she went out; it never woke. She was in high
spirits when she came back with her hat on. She had taken the
opportunity to put on a little rouge. Philip thought it was excitement
which had brought a faint colour to her pale cheeks; he was touched by
her child-like delight, and reproached himself for the austerity with
which he had treated her. She laughed when she got out into the air.
The first tram they saw was going towards Westminster Bridge and they
got on it. Philip smoked his pipe, and they looked at the crowded
street. The shops were open, gaily lit, and people were doing their
shopping for the next day. They passed a music-hall called the
Canterbury and Mildred cried out:
“Oh, Philip, do let’s go there. I haven’t been to a music-hall for
months.”
“We can’t afford stalls, you know.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, I shall be quite happy in the gallery.”
They got down and walked back a hundred yards till they came to the
doors. They got capital seats for sixpence each, high up but not in the
gallery, and the night was so fine that there was plenty of room.
Mildred’s eyes glistened. She enjoyed herself thoroughly. There was a
simple-mindedness in her which touched Philip. She was a puzzle to him.
Certain things in her still pleased him, and he thought that there was
a lot in her which was very good: she had been badly brought up, and
her life was hard; he had blamed her for much that she could not help;
and it was his own fault if he had asked virtues from her which it was
not in her power to give. Under different circumstances she might have
been a charming girl. She was extraordinarily unfit for the battle of
life. As he watched her now in profile, her mouth slightly open and
that delicate flush on her cheeks, he thought she looked strangely
virginal. He felt an overwhelming compassion for her, and with all his
heart he forgave her for the misery she had caused him. The smoky
atmosphere made Philip’s eyes ache, but when he suggested going she
turned to him with beseeching face and asked him to stay till the end.
He smiled and consented. She took his hand and held it for the rest of
the performance. When they streamed out with the audience into the
crowded street she did not want to go home; they wandered up the
Westminster Bridge Road, looking at the people.
“I’ve not had such a good time as this for months,” she said.
Philip’s heart was full, and he was thankful to the fates because he
had carried out his sudden impulse to take Mildred and her baby into
his flat. It was very pleasant to see her happy gratitude. At last she
grew tired and they jumped on a tram to go home; it was late now, and
when they got down and turned into their own street there was no one
about. Mildred slipped her arm through his.
“It’s just like old times, Phil,” she said.
She had never called him Phil before, that was what Griffiths called
him; and even now it gave him a curious pang. He remembered how much he
had wanted to die then; his pain had been so great that he had thought
quite seriously of committing suicide. It all seemed very long ago. He
smiled at his past self. Now he felt nothing for Mildred but infinite
pity. They reached the house, and when they got into the sitting-room
Philip lit the gas.
“Is the baby all right?” he asked.
“I’ll just go in and see.”
When she came back it was to say that it had not stirred since she left
it. It was a wonderful child. Philip held out his hand.
“Well, good-night.”
“D’you want to go to bed already?”
“It’s nearly one. I’m not used to late hours these days,” said Philip.
She took his hand and holding it looked into his eyes with a little
smile.
“Phil, the other night in that room, when you asked me to come and stay
here, I didn’t mean what you thought I meant, when you said you didn’t
want me to be anything to you except just to cook and that sort of
thing.”
“Didn’t you?” answered Philip, withdrawing his hand. “I did.”
“Don’t be such an old silly,” she laughed.
He shook his head.
“I meant it quite seriously. I shouldn’t have asked you to stay here on
any other condition.”
“Why not?”
“I feel I couldn’t. I can’t explain it, but it would spoil it all.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, very well, it’s just as you choose. I’m not one to go down on my
hands and knees for that, and chance it.”
She went out, slamming the door behind her.