And now it happened that the fortunes of Philip Carey, of no
consequence to any but himself, were affected by the events through
which his country was passing. History was being made, and the process
was so significant that it seemed absurd it should touch the life of an
obscure medical student. Battle after battle, Magersfontein, Colenso,
Spion Kop, lost on the playing fields of Eton, had humiliated the
nation and dealt the death-blow to the prestige of the aristocracy and
gentry who till then had found no one seriously to oppose their
assertion that they possessed a natural instinct of government. The old
order was being swept away: history was being made indeed. Then the
colossus put forth his strength, and, blundering again, at last
blundered into the semblance of victory. Cronje surrendered at
Paardeberg, Ladysmith was relieved, and at the beginning of March Lord
Roberts marched into Bloemfontein.
It was two or three days after the news of this reached London that
Macalister came into the tavern in Beak Street and announced joyfully
that things were looking brighter on the Stock Exchange. Peace was in
sight, Roberts would march into Pretoria within a few weeks, and shares
were going up already. There was bound to be a boom.
“Now’s the time to come in,” he told Philip. “It’s no good waiting till
the public gets on to it. It’s now or never.”
He had inside information. The manager of a mine in South Africa had
cabled to the senior partner of his firm that the plant was uninjured.
They would start working again as soon as possible. It wasn’t a
speculation, it was an investment. To show how good a thing the senior
partner thought it Macalister told Philip that he had bought five
hundred shares for both his sisters: he never put them into anything
that wasn’t as safe as the Bank of England.
“I’m going to put my shirt on it myself,” he said.
The shares were two and an eighth to a quarter. He advised Philip not
to be greedy, but to be satisfied with a ten-shilling rise. He was
buying three hundred for himself and suggested that Philip should do
the same. He would hold them and sell when he thought fit. Philip had
great faith in him, partly because he was a Scotsman and therefore by
nature cautious, and partly because he had been right before. He jumped
at the suggestion.
“I daresay we shall be able to sell before the account,” said
Macalister, “but if not, I’ll arrange to carry them over for you.”
It seemed a capital system to Philip. You held on till you got your
profit, and you never even had to put your hand in your pocket. He
began to watch the Stock Exchange columns of the paper with new
interest. Next day everything was up a little, and Macalister wrote to
say that he had had to pay two and a quarter for the shares. He said
that the market was firm. But in a day or two there was a set-back. The
news that came from South Africa was less reassuring, and Philip with
anxiety saw that his shares had fallen to two; but Macalister was
optimistic, the Boers couldn’t hold out much longer, and he was willing
to bet a top-hat that Roberts would march into Johannesburg before the
middle of April. At the account Philip had to pay out nearly forty
pounds. It worried him considerably, but he felt that the only course
was to hold on: in his circumstances the loss was too great for him to
pocket. For two or three weeks nothing happened; the Boers would not
understand that they were beaten and nothing remained for them but to
surrender: in fact they had one or two small successes, and Philip’s
shares fell half a crown more. It became evident that the war was not
finished. There was a lot of selling. When Macalister saw Philip he was
pessimistic.
“I’m not sure if the best thing wouldn’t be to cut the loss. I’ve been
paying out about as much as I want to in differences.”
Philip was sick with anxiety. He could not sleep at night; he bolted
his breakfast, reduced now to tea and bread and butter, in order to get
over to the club reading-room and see the paper; sometimes the news was
bad, and sometimes there was no news at all, but when the shares moved
it was to go down. He did not know what to do. If he sold now he would
lose altogether hard on three hundred and fifty pounds; and that would
leave him only eighty pounds to go on with. He wished with all his
heart that he had never been such a fool as to dabble on the Stock
Exchange, but the only thing was to hold on; something decisive might
happen any day and the shares would go up; he did not hope now for a
profit, but he wanted to make good his loss. It was his only chance of
finishing his course at the hospital. The Summer session was beginning
in May, and at the end of it he meant to take the examination in
midwifery. Then he would only have a year more; he reckoned it out
carefully and came to the conclusion that he could manage it, fees and
all, on a hundred and fifty pounds; but that was the least it could
possibly be done on.
Early in April he went to the tavern in Beak Street anxious to see
Macalister. It eased him a little to discuss the situation with him;
and to realise that numerous people beside himself were suffering from
loss of money made his own trouble a little less intolerable. But when
Philip arrived no one was there but Hayward, and no sooner had Philip
seated himself than he said:
“I’m sailing for the Cape on Sunday.”
“Are you!” exclaimed Philip.
Hayward was the last person he would have expected to do anything of
the kind. At the hospital men were going out now in numbers; the
Government was glad to get anyone who was qualified; and others, going
out as troopers, wrote home that they had been put on hospital work as
soon as it was learned that they were medical students. A wave of
patriotic feeling had swept over the country, and volunteers were
coming from all ranks of society.
“What are you going as?” asked Philip.
“Oh, in the Dorset Yeomanry. I’m going as a trooper.”
Philip had known Hayward for eight years. The youthful intimacy which
had come from Philip’s enthusiastic admiration for the man who could
tell him of art and literature had long since vanished; but habit had
taken its place; and when Hayward was in London they saw one another
once or twice a week. He still talked about books with a delicate
appreciation. Philip was not yet tolerant, and sometimes Hayward’s
conversation irritated him. He no longer believed implicitly that
nothing in the world was of consequence but art. He resented Hayward’s
contempt for action and success. Philip, stirring his punch, thought of
his early friendship and his ardent expectation that Hayward would do
great things; it was long since he had lost all such illusions, and he
knew now that Hayward would never do anything but talk. He found his
three hundred a year more difficult to live on now that he was
thirty-five than he had when he was a young man; and his clothes,
though still made by a good tailor, were worn a good deal longer than
at one time he would have thought possible. He was too stout and no
artful arrangement of his fair hair could conceal the fact that he was
bald. His blue eyes were dull and pale. It was not hard to guess that
he drank too much.
“What on earth made you think of going out to the Cape?” asked Philip.
“Oh, I don’t know, I thought I ought to.”
Philip was silent. He felt rather silly. He understood that Hayward was
being driven by an uneasiness in his soul which he could not account
for. Some power within him made it seem necessary to go and fight for
his country. It was strange, since he considered patriotism no more
than a prejudice, and, flattering himself on his cosmopolitanism, he
had looked upon England as a place of exile. His countrymen in the mass
wounded his susceptibilities. Philip wondered what it was that made
people do things which were so contrary to all their theories of life.
It would have been reasonable for Hayward to stand aside and watch with
a smile while the barbarians slaughtered one another. It looked as
though men were puppets in the hands of an unknown force, which drove
them to do this and that; and sometimes they used their reason to
justify their actions; and when this was impossible they did the
actions in despite of reason.
“People are very extraordinary,” said Philip. “I should never have
expected you to go out as a trooper.”
Hayward smiled, slightly embarrassed, and said nothing.
“I was examined yesterday,” he remarked at last. “It was worth while
undergoing the gene of it to know that one was perfectly fit.”
Philip noticed that he still used a French word in an affected way when
an English one would have served. But just then Macalister came in.
“I wanted to see you, Carey,” he said. “My people don’t feel inclined
to hold those shares any more, the market’s in such an awful state, and
they want you to take them up.”
Philip’s heart sank. He knew that was impossible. It meant that he must
accept the loss. His pride made him answer calmly.
“I don’t know that I think that’s worth while. You’d better sell them.”
“It’s all very fine to say that, I’m not sure if I can. The market’s
stagnant, there are no buyers.”
“But they’re marked down at one and an eighth.”
“Oh yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t get that for them.”
Philip did not say anything for a moment. He was trying to collect
himself.
“D’you mean to say they’re worth nothing at all?”
“Oh, I don’t say that. Of course they’re worth something, but you see,
nobody’s buying them now.”
“Then you must just sell them for what you can get.”
Macalister looked at Philip narrowly. He wondered whether he was very
hard hit.
“I’m awfully sorry, old man, but we’re all in the same boat. No one
thought the war was going to hang on this way. I put you into them, but
I was in myself too.”
“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Philip. “One has to take one’s
chance.”
He moved back to the table from which he had got up to talk to
Macalister. He was dumfounded; his head suddenly began to ache
furiously; but he did not want them to think him unmanly. He sat on for
an hour. He laughed feverishly at everything they said. At last he got
up to go.
“You take it pretty coolly,” said Macalister, shaking hands with him.
“I don’t suppose anyone likes losing between three and four hundred
pounds.”
When Philip got back to his shabby little room he flung himself on his
bed, and gave himself over to his despair. He kept on regretting his
folly bitterly; and though he told himself that it was absurd to regret
for what had happened was inevitable just because it had happened, he
could not help himself. He was utterly miserable. He could not sleep.
He remembered all the ways he had wasted money during the last few
years. His head ached dreadfully.
The following evening there came by the last post the statement of his
account. He examined his pass-book. He found that when he had paid
everything he would have seven pounds left. Seven pounds! He was
thankful he had been able to pay. It would have been horrible to be
obliged to confess to Macalister that he had not the money. He was
dressing in the eye-department during the summer session, and he had
bought an ophthalmoscope off a student who had one to sell. He had not
paid for this, but he lacked the courage to tell the student that he
wanted to go back on his bargain. Also he had to buy certain books. He
had about five pounds to go on with. It lasted him six weeks; then he
wrote to his uncle a letter which he thought very business-like; he
said that owing to the war he had had grave losses and could not go on
with his studies unless his uncle came to his help. He suggested that
the Vicar should lend him a hundred and fifty pounds paid over the next
eighteen months in monthly instalments; he would pay interest on this
and promised to refund the capital by degrees when he began to earn
money. He would be qualified in a year and a half at the latest, and he
could be pretty sure then of getting an assistantship at three pounds a
week. His uncle wrote back that he could do nothing. It was not fair to
ask him to sell out when everything was at its worst, and the little he
had he felt that his duty to himself made it necessary for him to keep
in case of illness. He ended the letter with a little homily. He had
warned Philip time after time, and Philip had never paid any attention
to him; he could not honestly say he was surprised; he had long
expected that this would be the end of Philip’s extravagance and want
of balance. Philip grew hot and cold when he read this. It had never
occurred to him that his uncle would refuse, and he burst into furious
anger; but this was succeeded by utter blankness: if his uncle would
not help him he could not go on at the hospital. Panic seized him and,
putting aside his pride, he wrote again to the Vicar of Blackstable,
placing the case before him more urgently; but perhaps he did not
explain himself properly and his uncle did not realise in what
desperate straits he was, for he answered that he could not change his
mind; Philip was twenty-five and really ought to be earning his living.
When he died Philip would come into a little, but till then he refused
to give him a penny. Philip felt in the letter the satisfaction of a
man who for many years had disapproved of his courses and now saw
himself justified.