Of Human Bondage Read Online Free

an instant. The child
spoke in a clear treble. He recalled the words, but they meant
nothing to him.
      "You'd better take one of the photographs and keep
it in your room," said Mr. Carey. "I'll put the others away."
      He sent one to Miss Watkin, and she wrote and
explained how they came to be taken.
      One day Mrs. Carey was lying in bed, but she was
feeling a little better than usual, and the doctor in the morning
had seemed hopeful; Emma had taken the child out, and the maids
were downstairs in the basement: suddenly Mrs. Carey felt
desperately alone in the world. A great fear seized her that she
would not recover from the confinement which she was expecting in a
fortnight. Her son was nine years old. How could he be expected to
remember her? She could not bear to think that he would grow up and
forget, forget her utterly; and she had loved him so passionately,
because he was weakly and deformed, and because he was her child.
She had no photographs of herself taken since her marriage, and
that was ten years before. She wanted her son to know what she
looked like at the end. He could not forget her then, not forget
utterly. She knew that if she called her maid and told her she
wanted to get up, the maid would prevent her, and perhaps send for
the doctor, and she had not the strength now to struggle or argue.
She got out of bed and began to dress herself. She had been on her
back so long that her legs gave way beneath her, and then the soles
of her feet tingled so that she could hardly bear to put them to
the ground. But she went on. She was unused to doing her own hair
and, when she raised her arms and began to brush it, she felt
faint. She could never do it as her maid did. It was beautiful
hair, very fine, and of a deep rich gold. Her eyebrows were
straight and dark. She put on a black skirt, but chose the bodice
of the evening dress which she liked best: it was of a white damask
which was fashionable in those days. She looked at herself in the
glass. Her face was very pale, but her skin was clear: she had
never had much colour, and this had always made the redness of her
beautiful mouth emphatic. She could not restrain a sob. But she
could not afford to be sorry for herself; she was feeling already
desperately tired; and she put on the furs which Henry had given
her the Christmas before – she had been so proud of them and so
happy then – and slipped downstairs with beating heart. She got
safely out of the house and drove to a photographer. She paid for a
dozen photographs. She was obliged to ask for a glass of water in
the middle of the sitting; and the assistant, seeing she was ill,
suggested that she should come another day, but she insisted on
staying till the end. At last it was finished, and she drove back
again to the dingy little house in Kensington which she hated with
all her heart. It was a horrible house to die in.
      She found the front door open, and when she drove up
the maid and Emma ran down the steps to help her. They had been
frightened when they found her room empty. At first they thought
she must have gone to Miss Watkin, and the cook was sent round.
Miss Watkin came back with her and was waiting anxiously in the
drawing-room. She came downstairs now full of anxiety and
reproaches; but the exertion had been more than Mrs. Carey was fit
for, and when the occasion for firmness no longer existed she gave
way. She fell heavily into Emma's arms and was carried upstairs.
She remained unconscious for a time that seemed incredibly long to
those that watched her, and the doctor, hurriedly sent for, did not
come. It was next day, when she was a little better, that Miss
Watkin got some explanation out of her. Philip was playing on the
floor of his mother's bed-room, and neither of the ladies paid
attention to him. He only understood vaguely what they were talking
about, and he could not have said why those words remained in his
memory.
      "I wanted the boy to have something to remember me
by when