Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham [254]
“It’s very good of you not to have said anything disagreeable to me, Philip. I thought you might say I didn’t know what all.”
He saw that she was crying again. He remembered how she had come to him when Emil Miller had deserted her and how she had wept. The recollection of her suffering and of his own humiliation seemed to render more overwhelming the compassion he felt now.
“If I could only get out of it!” she moaned. “I hate it so. I’m unfit for the life, I’m not the sort of girl for that. I’d do anything to get away from it, I’d be a servant if I could. Oh, I wish I was dead.”
And in pity for herself she broke down now completely. She sobbed hysterically, and her thin body was shaken.
“Oh, you don’t know what it is. Nobody knows till they’ve done it.”
Philip could not bear to see her cry. He was tortured by the horror of her position.
“Poor child,” he whispered. “Poor child.”
He was deeply moved. Suddenly he had an inspiration. It filled him with a perfect ecstasy of happiness.
“Look here, if you want to get away from it, I’ve got an idea. I’m frightfully hard up just now, I’ve got to be as economical as I can; but I’ve got a sort of little flat in Kennington and I’ve got a spare room. If you like you and the baby can come and live there. I pay a woman three and sixpence a week to keep the place clean and to do a little cooking for me. You could do that and your food wouldn’t come to much more than the money I should save on her. It doesn’t cost any more to feed two than one, and I don’t suppose the baby eats much.”
She stopped crying and looked at him.
“D’you mean to say that you could take me back after all that’s happened?”
Philip flushed a little in embarrassment at what he had to say.
“I don’t want you to mistake me. I’m just giving you a room which doesn’t cost me anything and your food. I don’t expect anything more from you than that you should do exactly the same as the woman I have in does. Except for that I don’t want anything from you at all. I daresay you can cook well enough for that.”
She sprang to her feet and was about to come toward him.
“You are good to me, Philip.”
“No, please stop where you are,” he said hurriedly, putting out his hand as though to push her away.
He did not know why it was, but he could not bear the thought that she should touch him.
“I don’t want to be anything more than a friend to you.”
“You are good to me,” she repeated. “You are good to me.”
“Does that mean you’ll come?”
“Oh, yes, I’d do anything to get away from this. You’ll never regret what you’ve done, Philip, never. When can I come, Philip?”
“You’d better come tomorrow.”
Suddenly she burst into tears again.
“What on earth are you crying for now?” he smiled.
“I’m so grateful to you. I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you.”
“Oh, that’s all right. You’d better go home now.” He wrote out the address and told her that if she came at half past five he would be ready for her. It was so late that he had to walk home, but it did not seem a long way, for he was intoxicated with delight; he seemed to walk on air.
XCI
Next day he got up early to make the room ready for Mildred. He told the woman who had looked after him that he would not want her anymore. Mildred came about six, and Philip, who was watching from the window, went down to let her in and help her to bring up the luggage: it consisted now of no more than three large parcels wrapped in brown paper, for she had been obliged to sell everything that was not absolutely needful. She wore the same black silk dress she had worn the night before, and, though she had now no rouge on her cheeks, there was still about her eyes the black which remained after a perfunctory wash in the morning: it made her look very ill. She was a pathetic figure as she stepped out of the cab with the baby in her arms. She seemed a little shy, and they found nothing