Of Human Bondage Read Free Page A

them fires they must keep a second
girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs. Carey lived in the dining-room so
that one fire should do, and in the summer they could not get out
of the habit, so the drawing-room was used only by Mr. Carey on
Sunday afternoons for his nap. But every Saturday he had a fire in
the study so that he could write his sermon.
      Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into
a tiny bed-room that looked out on the drive. Immediately in front
of the window was a large tree, which Philip remembered now because
the branches were so low that it was possible to climb quite high
up it.
      "A small room for a small boy," said Mrs. Carey.
"You won't be frightened at sleeping alone?"
      "Oh, no."
      On his first visit to the vicarage he had come with
his nurse, and Mrs. Carey had had little to do with him. She looked
at him now with some uncertainty.
      "Can you wash your own hands, or shall I wash them
for you?"
      "I can wash myself," he answered firmly.
      "Well, I shall look at them when you come down to
tea," said Mrs. Carey.
      She knew nothing about children. After it was
settled that Philip should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had
thought much how she should treat him; she was anxious to do her
duty; but now he was there she found herself just as shy of him as
he was of her. She hoped he would not be noisy and rough, because
her husband did not like rough and noisy boys. Mrs. Carey made an
excuse to leave Philip alone, but in a moment came back and knocked
at the door; she asked him, without coming in, if he could pour out
the water himself. Then she went downstairs and rang the bell for
tea.
      The dining-room, large and well-proportioned, had
windows on two sides of it, with heavy curtains of red rep; there
was a big table in the middle; and at one end an imposing mahogany
sideboard with a looking-glass in it. In one corner stood a
harmonium. On each side of the fireplace were chairs covered in
stamped leather, each with an antimacassar; one had arms and was
called the husband, and the other had none and was called the wife.
Mrs. Carey never sat in the arm-chair: she said she preferred a
chair that was not too comfortable; there was always a lot to do,
and if her chair had had arms she might not be so ready to leave
it.
      Mr. Carey was making up the fire when Philip came
in, and he pointed out to his nephew that there were two pokers.
One was large and bright and polished and unused, and was called
the Vicar; and the other, which was much smaller and had evidently
passed through many fires, was called the Curate.
      "What are we waiting for?" said Mr. Carey.
      "I told Mary Ann to make you an egg. I thought you'd
be hungry after your journey."
      Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to
Blackstable very tiring. She seldom travelled herself, for the
living was only three hundred a year, and, when her husband wanted
a holiday, since there was not money for two, he went by himself.
He was very fond of Church Congresses and usually managed to go up
to London once a year; and once he had been to Paris for the
exhibition, and two or three times to Switzerland. Mary Ann brought
in the egg, and they sat down. The chair was much too low for
Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey nor his wife knew what
to do.
      "I'll put some books under him," said Mary Ann.
      She took from the top of the harmonium the large
Bible and the prayer-book from which the Vicar was accustomed to
read prayers, and put them on Philip's chair.
      "Oh, William, he can't sit on the Bible," said Mrs.
Carey, in a shocked tone. "Couldn't you get him some books out of
the study?"
      Mr. Carey considered the question for an
instant.
      "I don't think it matters this once if you put the
prayer-book on the top, Mary Ann," he said. "The book of Common
Prayer is the composition of men like ourselves. It has no claim to
divine authorship."
      "I hadn't thought of that, William," said