Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham.mobi [270]
“We missed you last Sunday,” he said.
Philip could never tell lies without embarrassment, and he was scarlet when he finished his explanation for not coming. Then Mrs. Athelny entered and shook hands with him.
“I hope you’re better, Mr. Carey,” she said.
He did not know why she imagined that anything had been the matter with him, for the kitchen door was closed when he came up with the children, and they had not left him.
“Dinner won’t be ready for another ten minutes,” she said, in her slow drawl. “Won’t you have an egg beaten up in a glass of milk while you’re waiting?”
There was a look of concern on her face which made Philip uncomfortable. He forced a laugh and answered that he was not at all hungry. Sally came in to lay the table, and Philip began to chaff her. It was the family joke that she would be as fat as an aunt of Mrs. Athelny, called Aunt Elizabeth, whom the children had never seen but regarded as the type of obscene corpulence.
“I say, what has happened since I saw you last, Sally?” Philip began.
“Nothing that I know of.”
“I believe you’ve been putting on weight.”
“I’m sure you haven’t,” she retorted. “You’re a perfect skeleton.”
Philip reddened.
“That’s a tu quoque, Sally,” cried her father. “You will be fined one golden hair of your head. Jane, fetch the shears.”
“Well, he is thin, father,” remonstrated Sally. “He’s just skin and bone.”
“That’s not the question, child. He is at perfect liberty to be thin, but your obesity is contrary to decorum.”
As he spoke he put his arm proudly around her waist and looked at her with admiring eyes.
“Let me get on with the table, father. If I am comfortable there are some who don’t seem to mind it.”
“The hussy!” cried Athelny, with a dramatic wave of the hand. “She taunts me with the notorious fact that Joseph, a son of Levi who sells jewels in Holborn, has made her an offer of marriage.”
“Have you accepted him, Sally?” asked Philip.
“Don’t you know father better than that by this time? There’s not a word of truth in it.”
“Well, if he hasn’t made you an offer of marriage,” cried Athelny, “by Saint George and Merry England, I will seize him by the nose and demand of him immediately what are his intentions.”
“Sit down, father, dinner’s ready. Now then, you children, get along with you and wash your hands all of you, and don’t shirk it, because I mean to look at them before you have a scrap of dinner, so there.”
Philip thought he was ravenous till he began to eat, but then discovered that his stomach turned against food, and he could eat hardly at all. His brain was weary; and he did not notice that Athelny, contrary to his habit, spoke very little. Philip was relieved to be sitting in a comfortable house, but every now and then he could not prevent himself from glancing out of the window. The day was tempestuous. The fine weather had broken; and it was cold, and there was a bitter wind; now and again gusts of rain drove against the window. Philip wondered what he should do that night. The Athelnys went to bed early, and he could not stay where he was after ten o’clock. His heart sank at the thought of going out into the bleak darkness. It seemed more terrible now that he was with his friends than when he was outside and alone. He kept on saying to himself that there were plenty more who would be spending the night out of doors. He strove to distract his mind by talking, but in the middle of his words a spatter of rain against the window would make him start.
“It’s like March weather,” said Athelny. “Not the sort of day one would like to be crossing the Channel.”
Presently they finished, and Sally came in and cleared away.
“Would you like a twopenny stinker?” said Athelny, handing him a cigar.
Philip took it and inhaled the smoke with delight. It soothed him extraordinarily. When Sally had finished Athelny told her to shut the door after her.