Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham [322]
The usual practice was to pay three visits after a confinement, and one Sunday Philip went to see a patient at the dinner hour. She was up for the first time.
“I couldn’t stay in bed no longer, I really couldn’t. I’m not one for idling, and it gives me the fidgets to be there and do nothing all day long, so I said to ’Erb, I’m just going to get up and cook your. dinner for you.”
’Erb was sitting at table with his knife and fork already in his hands. He was a young man, with an open face and blue eyes. He was earning good money, and as things went the couple were in easy circumstances. They had only been married a few months, and were both delighted with the rosy boy who lay in the cradle at the foot of the bed. There was a savoury smell of beefsteak in the room and Philip’s eyes turned to the range.
“I was just going to dish up this minute,” said the woman.
“Fire away,” said Philip. “I’ll just have a look at the son and heir and then I’ll take myself off.”
Husband and wife laughed at Philip’s expression, and ’Erb getting up went over with Philip to the cradle. He looked at his baby proudly.
“There doesn’t seem much wrong with him, does there?” said Philip.
He took up his hat, and by this time ’Erb’s wife had dished up the beefsteak and put on the table a plate of green peas.
“You’re going to have a nice dinner,” smiled Philip.
“He’s only in of a Sunday and I like to ‘ave something special for him, so as he shall miss his ’ome when he’s out at work.”
“I suppose you’d be above sittin’ down and ‘avin’ a bit of dinner with us?” said ’Erb.
“Oh, ’Erb,” said his wife, in a shocked tone.
“Not if you ask me,” answered Philip, with his attractive smile.
“Well, that’s what I call friendly; I knew ’e wouldn’t take offense, Polly. Just get another plate, my girl.”
Polly was flustered, and she thought ‘Erb a regular caution, you never knew what ideas ’e’d get in ‘is ’ead next; but she got a plate and wiped it quickly with her apron, then took a new knife and fork from the chest of drawers, where her best cutlery rested among her best clothes. There was a jug of stout on the table, and ‘Erb poured Philip out a glass. He wanted to give him the lion’s share of the beefsteak, but Philip insisted that they should share alike. It was a sunny room with two windows that reached to the floor; it had been the parlor of a house which at one time was if not fashionable at least respectable: it might have been inhabited fifty years before by a well-to-do tradesman or an officer on half pay. Erb had been a football player before he married, and there were photographs on the wall of various teams in self-conscious attitudes, with neatly plastered hair, the captain seated proudly in the middle holding a cup. There were other signs of prosperity: photographs of the relations of ’Erb and his wife in Sunday clothes; on the chimney-piece an elaborate arrangement of shells stuck on a miniature rock; and on each side mugs, “A present from Southend” in Gothic letters, with pictures of a pier and a parade on them. ‘Erb was something of a character; he was a non-union man and expressed himself with indignation at the efforts of the union to force him to join. The union wasn’t no good to him, he never found no difficulty in getting work, and there was good wages for anyone as ’ad a head on his shoulders and wasn’t above puttin’ ‘is ’and to anything as come ‘is way. Polly was timorous. If she was ’im she’d join the union, the last time there was a strike she was expectin’ ’im to be brought back in an ambulance every time he went out. She turned to Philip.
“He’s that obstinate, there’s no doing anything with ’im.”
“Well, what I say is it’s a free country, and I won’t be dictated to.”
“It’s no good saying it’s a free country,” said Polly,