Josiah Graves in his masterful way made arrangements, becoming but
economical, for the funeral; and when it was over came back to the
vicarage with Philip. The will was in his charge, and with a due sense
of the fitness of things he read it to Philip over an early cup of tea.
It was written on half a sheet of paper and left everything Mr. Carey
had to his nephew. There was the furniture, about eighty pounds at the
bank, twenty shares in the A. B. C. company, a few in Allsop’s brewery,
some in the Oxford music-hall, and a few more in a London restaurant.
They had been bought under Mr. Graves’ direction, and he told Philip
with satisfaction:
“You see, people must eat, they will drink, and they want amusement.
You’re always safe if you put your money in what the public thinks
necessities.”
His words showed a nice discrimination between the grossness of the
vulgar, which he deplored but accepted, and the finer taste of the
elect. Altogether in investments there was about five hundred pounds;
and to that must be added the balance at the bank and what the
furniture would fetch. It was riches to Philip. He was not happy but
infinitely relieved.
Mr. Graves left him, after they had discussed the auction which must be
held as soon as possible, and Philip sat himself down to go through the
papers of the deceased. The Rev. William Carey had prided himself on
never destroying anything, and there were piles of correspondence
dating back for fifty years and bundles upon bundles of neatly docketed
bills. He had kept not only letters addressed to him, but letters which
himself had written. There was a yellow packet of letters which he had
written to his father in the forties, when as an Oxford undergraduate
he had gone to Germany for the long vacation. Philip read them idly. It
was a different William Carey from the William Carey he had known, and
yet there were traces in the boy which might to an acute observer have
suggested the man. The letters were formal and a little stilted. He
showed himself strenuous to see all that was noteworthy, and he
described with a fine enthusiasm the castles of the Rhine. The falls of
Schaffhausen made him ‘offer reverent thanks to the all-powerful
Creator of the universe, whose works were wondrous and beautiful,’ and
he could not help thinking that they who lived in sight of ‘this
handiwork of their blessed Maker must be moved by the contemplation to
lead pure and holy lives.’ Among some bills Philip found a miniature
which had been painted of William Carey soon after he was ordained. It
represented a thin young curate, with long hair that fell over his head
in natural curls, with dark eyes, large and dreamy, and a pale ascetic
face. Philip remembered the chuckle with which his uncle used to tell
of the dozens of slippers which were worked for him by adoring ladies.
The rest of the afternoon and all the evening Philip toiled through the
innumerable correspondence. He glanced at the address and at the
signature, then tore the letter in two and threw it into the
washing-basket by his side. Suddenly he came upon one signed Helen. He
did not know the writing. It was thin, angular, and old-fashioned. It
began: my dear William, and ended: your affectionate sister. Then it
struck him that it was from his own mother. He had never seen a letter
of hers before, and her handwriting was strange to him. It was about
himself.
My dear William,
Stephen wrote to you to thank you for your congratulations on the birth
of our son and your kind wishes to myself. Thank God we are both well
and I am deeply thankful for the great mercy which has been shown me.
Now that I can hold a pen I want to tell you and dear Louisa myself how
truly grateful I am to you both for all your kindness to me now and
always since my marriage. I am going to ask you to do me a great
favour. Both Stephen and I wish you to be the boy’s godfather, and we
hope that you will consent. I know I am not asking a small thing, for I
am sure you will take the responsibilities of the position very
seriously, but I am especially anxious that you should undertake this
office because you are a clergyman as well as the boy’s uncle. I am
very anxious for the boy’s welfare and I pray God night and day that he
may grow into a good, honest, and Christian man. With you to guide him
I hope that he will become a soldier in Christ’s Faith and be all the
days of his life God-fearing, humble, and pious.
Your affectionate sister,
Helen.
Philip pushed the letter away and, leaning forward, rested his face on
his hands. It deeply touched and at the same time surprised him. He was
astonished at its religious tone, which seemed to him neither mawkish
nor sentimental. He knew nothing of his mother, dead now for nearly
twenty years, but that she was beautiful, and it was strange to learn
that she was simple and pious. He had never thought of that side of
her. He read again what she said about him, what she expected and
thought about him; he had turned out very differently; he looked at
himself for a moment; perhaps it was better that she was dead. Then a
sudden impulse caused him to tear up the letter; its tenderness and
simplicity made it seem peculiarly private; he had a queer feeling that
there was something indecent in his reading what exposed his mother’s
gentle soul. He went on with the Vicar’s dreary correspondence.
A few days later he went up to London, and for the first time for two
years entered by day the hall of St. Luke’s Hospital. He went to see
the secretary of the Medical School; he was surprised to see him and
asked Philip curiously what he had been doing. Philip’s experiences had
given him a certain confidence in himself and a different outlook upon
many things: such a question would have embarrassed him before; but now
he answered coolly, with a deliberate vagueness which prevented further
inquiry, that private affairs had obliged him to make a break in the
curriculum; he was now anxious to qualify as soon as possible. The
first examination he could take was in midwifery and the diseases of
women, and he put his name down to be a clerk in the ward devoted to
feminine ailments; since it was holiday time there happened to be no
difficulty in getting a post as obstetric clerk; he arranged to
undertake that duty during the last week of August and the first two of
September. After this interview Philip walked through the Medical
School, more or less deserted, for the examinations at the end of the
summer session were all over; and he wandered along the terrace by the
river-side. His heart was full. He thought that now he could begin a
new life, and he would put behind him all the errors, follies, and
miseries of the past. The flowing river suggested that everything
passed, was passing always, and nothing mattered; the future was before
him rich with possibilities.
He went back to Blackstable and busied himself with the settling up of
his uncle’s estate. The auction was fixed for the middle of August,
when the presence of visitors for the summer holidays would make it
possible to get better prices. Catalogues were made out and sent to the
various dealers in second-hand books at Tercanbury, Maidstone, and
Ashford.
One afternoon Philip took it into his head to go over to Tercanbury and
see his old school. He had not been there since the day when, with
relief in his heart, he had left it with the feeling that thenceforward
he was his own master. It was strange to wander through the narrow
streets of Tercanbury which he had known so well for so many years. He
looked at the old shops, still there, still selling the same things;
the booksellers with school-books, pious works, and the latest novels
in one window and photographs of the Cathedral and of the city in the
other; the games shop, with its cricket bats, fishing tackle, tennis
rackets, and footballs; the tailor from whom he had got clothes all
through his boyhood; and the fishmonger where his uncle whenever he
came to Tercanbury bought fish. He wandered along the sordid street in
which, behind a high wall, lay the red brick house which was the
preparatory school. Further on was the gateway that led into King’s
School, and he stood in the quadrangle round which were the various
buildings. It was just four and the boys were hurrying out of school.
He saw the masters in their gowns and mortar-boards, and they were
strange to him. It was more than ten years since he had left and many
changes had taken place. He saw the headmaster; he walked slowly down
from the schoolhouse to his own, talking to a big boy who Philip
supposed was in the sixth; he was little changed, tall, cadaverous,
romantic as Philip remembered him, with the same wild eyes; but the
black beard was streaked with gray now and the dark, sallow face was
more deeply lined. Philip had an impulse to go up and speak to him, but
he was afraid he would have forgotten him, and he hated the thought of
explaining who he was.
Boys lingered talking to one another, and presently some who had
hurried to change came out to play fives; others straggled out in twos
and threes and went out of the gateway, Philip knew they were going up
to the cricket ground; others again went into the precincts to bat at
the nets. Philip stood among them a stranger; one or two gave him an
indifferent glance; but visitors, attracted by the Norman staircase,
were not rare and excited little attention. Philip looked at them
curiously. He thought with melancholy of the distance that separated
him from them, and he thought bitterly how much he had wanted to do and
how little done. It seemed to him that all those years, vanished beyond
recall, had been utterly wasted. The boys, fresh and buoyant, were
doing the same things that he had done, it seemed that not a day had
passed since he left the school, and yet in that place where at least
by name he had known everybody now he knew not a soul. In a few years
these too, others taking their place, would stand alien as he stood;
but the reflection brought him no solace; it merely impressed upon him
the futility of human existence. Each generation repeated the trivial
round. He wondered what had become of the boys who were his companions:
they were nearly thirty now; some would be dead, but others were
married and had children; they were soldiers and parsons, doctors,
lawyers; they were staid men who were beginning to put youth behind
them. Had any of them made such a hash of life as he? He thought of the
boy he had been devoted to; it was funny, he could not recall his name;
he remembered exactly what he looked like, he had been his greatest
friend; but his name would not come back to him. He looked back with
amusement on the jealous emotions he had suffered on his account. It
was irritating not to recollect his name. He longed to be a boy again,
like those he saw sauntering through the quadrangle, so that, avoiding
his mistakes, he might start fresh and make something more out of life.
He felt an intolerable loneliness. He almost regretted the penury which
he had suffered during the last two years, since the desperate struggle
merely to keep body and soul together had deadened the pain of living.
In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread: it was not a
curse upon mankind, but the balm which reconciled it to existence.
But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of
the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than
part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself
strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and
excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the
design. He sought for beauty consciously, and he remembered how even as
a boy he had taken pleasure in the Gothic cathedral as one saw it from
the precincts; he went there and looked at the massive pile, gray under
the cloudy sky, with the central tower that rose like the praise of men
to their God; but the boys were batting at the nets, and they were
lissom and strong and active; he could not help hearing their shouts
and laughter. The cry of youth was insistent, and he saw the beautiful
thing before him only with his eyes.