Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham [262]
It struck her that an illness she did not know of might explain what had so much puzzled her. He flushed, for he hated to refer to his deformity.
“No, but they think they can do something to my foot. I couldn’t spare the time before, but now it doesn’t matter so much. I shall start my dressing in October instead of next month. I shall only be in hospital a few weeks and then we can go away to the seaside for the rest of the summer. It’ll do us all good, you and the baby and me.”
“Oh, let’s go to Brighton, Philip, I like Brighton, you get such a nice class of people there.”
Philip had vaguely thought of some little fishing village in Cornwall, but as she spoke it occurred to him that Mildred would be bored to death there.
“I don’t mind where we go as long as I get the sea.”
He did not know why, but he had suddenly an irresistible longing for the sea. He wanted to bathe, and he thought with delight of splashing about in the salt water. He was a good swimmer, and nothing exhilarated him like a rough sea.
“I say, it will be jolly,” he cried.
“It’ll be like a honeymoon, won’t it?” she said. “How much can I have for my new dress, Phil?”
XCIV
Philip asked Mr. Jacobs, the assistant-surgeon for whom he had dressed, to do the operation. Jacobs accepted with pleasure, since he was interested just then in neglected talipes and was getting together materials for a paper. He warned Philip that he could not make his foot like the other, but he thought he could do a good deal; and though he would always limp he would be able to wear a boot less unsightly than that which he had been accustomed to. Philip remembered how he had prayed to a God who was able to remove mountains for him who had faith, and he smiled bitterly.
“I don’t expect a miracle,” he answered.
“I think you’re wise to let me try what I can do. You’ll find a club-foot rather a handicap in practice. The layman is full of fads, and he doesn’t like his doctor to have anything the matter with him.”
Philip went into a “small ward,” which was a room on the landing, outside each ward, reserved for special cases. He remained there a month, for the surgeon would not let him go till he could walk; and, bearing the operation very well, he had a pleasant enough time. Lawson and Athelny came to see him, and one day Mrs. Athelny brought two of her children; students whom he knew looked in now and again to have a chat; Mildred came twice a week. Everyone was very kind to him, and Philip, always surprised when anyone took trouble with him, was touched and grateful. He enjoyed the relief from care; he need not worry there about the future, neither whether his money would last out nor whether he would pass his final examinations; and he could read to his heart’s content. He had not been able to read much of late, since Mildred disturbed him: she would make an aimless remark when he was trying to concentrate his attention, and would not be satisfied unless he answered; whenever he was comfortably settled down with a book she would want something done and would come to him with a cork she could not draw or a hammer to drive in a nail.
They settled to go to Brighton in August. Philip wanted to take lodgings, but Mildred said that she would have to do housekeeping, and it would only be a holiday for her if they went to a boarding-house.
“I have to see about the food every day at home; I get that sick of it I want a thorough change.”
Philip agreed, and it happened that Mildred knew of a boarding-house at Kemp Town where they would not be charged more than twenty-five shillings a week each. She arranged with Philip to write about rooms, but when he got back to Kennington he found that she had done nothing. He was irritated.
“I shouldn’t have thought you had so much to do as all that,” he said.
“Well, I can’t think of everything. It’s not my fault if I forget, is it?”
Philip was so anxious to get to the sea that he would not wait to communicate with the mistress of the boarding-house.
“We’ll leave the luggage at the station and go to the house and see if they’ve got rooms,