'Well,' said that lady, at last, with a little cough of uncertainty, 'in our best years we used to make four pounds a week out of the business – didn't we, George?'
'Quite that!' answered he and his wife, in a breath.
'Then, shall I tell my husband that if he allows you five pounds a week you will be able to live comfortably?'
'Oh, that's very handsome!' said Mrs Griffith.
'Very well,' said Daisy, getting up.
'You're not going?' cried her mother.
'Yes.'
'Well, that is hard. After not seeing you all these years. But you know best, of course!'
'There's no train up to London for two hours yet,' said George.
'No; I want to take a walk through Blackstable.'
'Oh, you'd better drive, in your position.'
'I prefer to walk.'
'Shall George come with you?'
'I prefer to walk alone.'
Then Mrs Griffith again enveloped her daughter in her arms, and told her she had always loved her and that she was her only daughter; after which, Daisy allowed herself to be embraced by her brother and his wife. Finally they shut the door on her and watched her from the window walk slowly down the High Street.
'If you'd asked it, I believe she'd have gone up to six quid a week,' said George.
15
Daisy walked down the High Street slowly, looking at the houses she remembered, and her lips quivered a little; at every step smells blew across to her full of memories – the smell of a tannery, the blood smell of a butcher's shop, the sea-odour from a shop of fishermen's clothes ... At last she came on to the beach, and in the darkening November day she looked at the booths she knew so well, the boats drawn up for the winter, whose names she knew, whose owners she had known from her childhood; she noticed the new villas built in her absence. And she looked at the grey sea; a sob burst from her; but she was very strong, and at once she recovered herself. She turned back and slowly walked up the High Street again to the station. The lamps were lighted now, and the street looked as it had looked in her memory through the years; between the Green Dragon and the Duke of Kent were the same groups of men – farmers, townsfolk, fishermen – talking in the glare of the rival inns, and they stared at her curiously as she passed, a tall figure, closely veiled. She looked at the well-remembered shops, the stationery shop with its old-fashioned, flyblown knick-knacks, the milliner's with cheap, gaudy hats, the little tailor's with his antiquated fashion plates. At last she came to the station, and sat in the waiting-room, her heart full of infinite sadness – the terrible sadness of the past ...
And she could not shake it off in the train; she could only just keep back the tears.
At Victoria she took a cab and finally reached home. The servants said her husband was in his study.
'Hulloa!' he said. 'I didn't expect you tonight.'
'I couldn't stay; it was awful.' Then she went up to him and looked into his eyes. 'You do love me, Herbert, don't you?' she said, her voice suddenly breaking. 'I want your love so badly.'
'I love you with all my heart!' he said, putting his arms around her.
But she could restrain herself no longer; the strong arms seemed to take away the rest of her strength, and she burst into tears.
'I will try and he a good wife to you, Herbert,' she said, as he kissed them away.
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
THE MOON AND
SIXPENCE
'Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.'
Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence tells the story of Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker who abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. Whilst his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications. The Moon and Sixpence is at once a satiric caricature of Edwardian mores and a vivid portrayal of the mentality of genius
'A writer of great dedication'
Graham Greene
'The modern writer who has influenced me the most'
George Orwell
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
CAKES AND ALE
'They did not behave like lovers, but like familiar friends ... her eyes rested on him quietly, as though he were not a man, but a chair or a table.'
Cakes and Ale is the book that roused a storm of controversy when it was first published. It is both a wickedly satirical novel about contemporary literary poseurs and a skilfully crafted study of freedom. It is also the book by which Maugham most wanted to be remembered – and probably still is.
'A formidable talent, a formidable sum of talents ... precision, tact, irony, and that beautiful negative thing which in so good a writer becomes positive – total, but total absence of pomposity'
Spectator
'One of my favourite writers'
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Also available in Vintage
W. Somerset Maugham
OF HUMAN
BONDAGE
'It was not true that he would never see her again. It was not true because it was impossible.'
Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces. It tells the story of Philip Carey, orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor.
And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.
Short Stories Page 65
