by H. G. Wells
You figure him there. He sat on the highest seat diametrically above the driver, and his head was spinning and spinning with champagne and this stupendous Tomfoolery of Luck; and his heart was swelling, swelling indeed at times as though it would burst him, and his face towards the sunlight was transfigured. He said never a word, but ever and again, as he thought of this or that, he laughed. He seemed full of chuckles for a time, detached and independent chuckles, chuckles that rose and burst on him like bubbles in a wine…. He held a banjo sceptre-fashion and resting on his knee. He had always wanted a banjo, now he had got one at Melchior's, while he was waiting for the bus.
There sat beside him a young servant, who was sucking peppermint, and a little boy with a sniff whose flitting eyes showed him curious to know why ever and again Kipps laughed, and beside the driver were two young men in gaiters talking about ‘tegs.’22 And there sat Kipps, all unsuspected, twelve hundred a year, as it were, except for the protrusion of the banjo, disguised as a common young man. And the young man in gaiters to the left of the driver eyed Kipps and his banjo, and especially his banjo, ever and again, as if he found it and him, with his rapt face, an insoluble enigma. And many a King has ridden into a conquered city with a lesser sense of splendour than Kipps.
Their shadows grew long behind them, and their faces were transfigured in gold as they rumbled on towards the splendid west. The sun set before they had passed Dymchurch, and as they came lumbering into New Romney past the windmill the dusk had come.
The driver handed down the banjo and the portmanteau, and Kipps having paid him, ‘That's aw right,’ he said to the change, as a gentleman should, turned about, and ran the portmanteau smartly into old Kipps, whom the sound of the stopping of the bus had brought to the door of the shop in an aggressive mood and with his mouth full of supper.
‘’llo, Uncle; didn't see you,’ said Kipps.
‘Blunderin' ninny,’ said old Kipps. ‘What's brought you here? Ain't early closing, is it? Not Toosday?’
‘Got some news for you, Uncle,’ said Kipps, dropping the portmanteau.
‘Ain't lost your situation, 'ave you? What's that you got there? I'm blowed if it ain't a banjo. Goolord! Spendin' your money on banjoes! Don't put down your portmanty there – anyhow. Right in the way of everybody. I'm blowed if ever I saw such a boy as you've got lately. Here! Molly! And look here! What you got a portmanty for? Why! Goolord! You ain't really lost your place, 'ave you?’
‘Somethin's happened,’ said Kipps, slightly dashed. ‘It's all right, Uncle. I'll tell you in a minute.’
Old Kipps took the banjo as his nephew picked up the portmanteau again.
The living-room door opened quickly, showing a table equipped with elaborate simplicity for supper, and Mrs Kipps appeared.
‘If it ain't young Artie!’ she said. ‘Why, whatever's brought you ‘ome?’
‘'Ullo, Aunt,’ said Artie. ‘I'm coming in. I got somethin' to tell you. I've 'ad a bit of luck.’
He wouldn't tell them all at once. He staggered with the portmanteau round the corner of the counter, set a bundle of children's tin pails into clattering oscillation, and entered the little room. He deposited his luggage in the corner beside the tall clock, and turned to his aunt and uncle again. His aunt regarded him doubtfully; the yellow light from the little lamp on the table escaped above the shade, and lit her forehead and the tip of her nose. It would be all right in a minute. He wouldn't tell them all at once. Old Kipps stood in the shop door with the banjo in his hand, breathing noisily. ‘The fact is, Aunt, I've ‘ad a bit of Luck.’
‘You ain't been backin' gordless 'orses, Artie?’ she asked.
‘No fear.’
‘It's a draw he's been in,’ said old Kipps, still panting from the impact of the portmanteau, ‘it's a dratted draw. Jest look here, Molly. He's won this ‘ere trashy banjer and throwd up his situation on the strength of it – that's what he's done. Goin' about singing. Dash and plunge. Jest the very fault poor Pheamy always ‘ad. Blunder right in, and no one mustn't stop ‘er!’
‘You ain't thrown up your place, Artie, ‘ave you?’ said Mrs Kipps.
Kipps perceived his opportunity. ‘I ‘ave,’ he said; ‘I've throwed it up.’
‘What for?’ said old Kipps.
‘So's to learn the banjo!’
‘Goo Lord!’ said old Kipps, in horror to find himself verified.
‘I'm going about playing,’ said Kipps, with a giggle. ‘Goin' to black my face,23 Aunt, and sing on the beach. I'm going to ‘ave a most tremenjous lark and earn any amount of money – you see. Twenty-six fousand pounds I'm going to earn just as easy as nothing!’
‘Kipps,’ said Mrs Kipps, ‘he's been drinking!’
They regarded their nephew across the supper table with long faces. Kipps exploded with laughter, and broke out again when his aunt shook her head very sadly at him. Then suddenly he fell grave. He felt he could keep it up no longer. ‘It's all right, Aunt. Reely. I ain't mad, and I ain't been drinking. I been lef' money. I been left twenty-six fousand pounds.’
Pause.
‘And you thrown up your place?’ said old Kipps.
‘Yes,’ said Kipps. ‘Rather!’
‘And bort this banjer, put on your best noo trousers, and come right on ‘ere?’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Kipps, ‘I – never – did!’
‘These ain't my noo trousers, Aunt,’ said Kipps, regretfully. ‘My noo trousers wasn't done.’
‘I shouldn't ha' thought that even you could ha' been such a fool as that,’ said old Kipps.
Pause.
‘It's all right,’ said Kipps, a little disconcerted by their distrustful solemnity. ‘It's all right – reely! Twenny-six thousan' pounds. And a ‘ouse.’
Old Kipps pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘A ‘ouse on the Leas. I could have gone there. Only I didn't. I didn't care to. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to come and tell you.’
‘How d‘yer know the ‘ouse—?’
‘They told me.’
‘Well,’ said old Kipps, and nodded his head portentously towards his nephew, with the corners of his mouth pulled down in a strikingly discouraging way. ‘Well, you are a young Gaby.’24
‘I didn't think it of you, Artie!’ said Mrs Kipps.
‘Wadjer mean?’ asked Kipps, faintly, looking from one to the other with a withered face.
Old Kipps closed the shop door. ‘They been ‘avin' a lark with you,’ said old Kipps, in a mournful undertone. ‘That's what I mean, my boy. They jest been seein' what a Gaby like you ‘ud do.’
‘I dessay that young Quodling was in it,’ said Mrs Kipps. ‘’E's jest that sort.’
(For Quodling of the green-baize bag had grown up to be a fearful dog, the terror of New Romney.)
‘It's somebody after your place very likely,’ said old Kipps.
Kipps looked from one sceptical reproving face to the other, and round him at the familiar shabby little room, with his familiar cheap portmanteau on the mended chair, and that banjo amidst the supper-things like some irrevocable deed. Could he be rich indeed? Could it be that these things had really happened? Or had some insane fancy whirled him hither?
Still – perhaps a hundred pounds—
‘But,’ he said. ‘It's all right, reely, Uncle. You don't think—? I'ad a letter.’
‘Got up,’ said old Kipps.
‘But I answered it and went to a norfis.’
Old Kipps felt staggered for a moment, but he shook his head and chins sagely from side to side. As the memory of old Bean and Shalford's revived, the confidence of Kipps came back to him.
‘I saw a nold gent, Uncle – perfect gentleman. And 'e told me all about it. Mos' respectable ‘e was. Said ‘is name was Watson and Bean – leastways 'e was Bean. Said it was lef' me' – Kipps suddenly dived into his breast pocket – ‘by my Grandfather—’
The old people started.
Old Kipps uttered an exclamation and wheeled round towards the man
tel-shelf, above which the daguerreotype of his lost younger sister smiled its fading smile upon the world.
‘Waddy, ‘is name was,’ said Kipps, with his hand still deep in his pocket. ‘It was ' is son was my father—’
‘Waddy!’ said old Kipps.
‘Waddy!’ said Mrs Kipps.
‘She'd never say,’ said old Kipps.
There was a long silence.
Kipps fumbled with a letter, a crumpled advertisement and three bank-notes. He hesitated between these items.
‘Why! That young chap what was arsting questions—’ said old Kipps, and regarded his wife with an eye of amazement.
‘Must ‘ave been,’ said Mrs Kipps.
‘Must ‘ave been,’ said old Kipps.
‘James,’ said Mrs Kipps, in an awe-stricken voice. ‘After all – perhaps— It's true!’
‘’Ow much did you say?’ asked old Kipps. ‘Ow much did you say ‘e'd lef' you, me b‘y?’
It was thrilling, though not quite in the way Kipps had expected. He answered almost meekly across the meagre supper-things, with his documentary evidence in his hand –
‘Twelve 'undred pounds. Proximately,’ he said. ‘Twelve 'undred pounds a year. 'E made 'is will jest before 'e died – not more'n a month ago. When 'e was dying, ‘e seemed to change like, Mr Bean said. 'E'd never forgiven 'is son, never – not till then. 'Is son 'ad died in Australia, years and years ago, and then 'e ‘adn't forgiven 'im. You know – 'is son what was my father. But jest when 'e was ill and dying 'e seemed to get worried like, and longing for someone of 'is own. And 'e told Mr Bean it was 'im that had prevented them marrying. So 'e thought. That's 'ow it all come about….’
§ 6
At last Kipps' flaring candle went up the narrow uncarpeted staircase to the little attic that had been his shelter and refuge during all the days of his childhood and youth. His head was whirling. He had been advised, he had been warned, he had been flattered and congratulated, he had been given whiskey and hot water and lemon and sugar, and his health had been drunk in the same. He had also eaten two Welsh rarebits25 – an unusual supper. His uncle was chiefly for his going into Parliament, his aunt was consumed with a great anxiety. ‘I'm afraid he'll go and marry beneath ‘im.’
‘Y'ought to 'ave a bit o' shootin' somewheer,’ said old Kipps.
‘It's your duty to marry into a county family, Artie – remember that.’
‘There's lots of young noblemen'll be glad to 'eng on to you,’ said old Kipps. ‘You mark my words. And borry your money. And then good-day to ye.’
‘I got to be precious careful,’ said Kipps. ‘Mr Bean said that.’
‘And you got to be precious careful of this old Bean,’ said old Kipps. ‘We may be out of the world in Noo Romney, but I've ’eard a bit about solicitors for all that. You keep your eye on old Bean me b'y.
‘’Ow do we know what 'e's up to, with your money, even now?’ said old Kipps, pursuing this uncomfortable topic.
‘’ E looked very respectable,’ said Kipps.
Kipps undressed with great deliberation and with vast gaps of pensive margin. Twenty-six thousand pounds!
His aunt's solicitude had brought back certain matters into the foreground that his ‘Twelve 'undred a year!’ had for a time driven away altogether. His thoughts went back to the woodcarving class. Twelve Hundred a Year. He sat on the edge of the bed in profound meditation, and his boots fell ‘whop’ and ‘whop’ upon the floor, with a long interval between each ‘whop.’ Twenty-six thousand pounds. ‘By Gum!’ He dropped the remainder of his costume about him on the floor, got into bed, pulled the patchwork quilt over him, and put his head on the pillow that had been first to hear of Ann Pornick's accession to his heart. But he did not think of Ann Pornick now.
It was about everything in the world except Ann Pornick that he seemed to be trying to think of – simultaneously. All the vivid happenings of the day came and went in his overtaxed brain – ‘that old Bean' explaining and explaining, the fat man who wouldn't believe, an overpowering smell of peppermint, the banjo, Miss Mergle saying he deserved it, Chitterlow vanishing round a corner, the wisdom and advice and warnings of his aunt and uncle. She was afraid he would marry beneath him, was she? She didn't know….
His brain made an excursion into the woodcarving class and presented Kipps with the picture of himself amazing that class by a modest yet clearly audible remark, ‘I been left twenty-six thousand pounds.’ Then he told them all quietly but firmly that he had always loved Miss Walshingham – always, and so he had brought all his twenty-six thousand pounds with him to give to her there and then. He wanted nothing in return…. Yes, he wanted nothing in return. He would give it to her all in an envelope and go. Of course he would keep the banjo – and a little present for his aunt and uncle – and a new suit perhaps – and one or two other things she would not miss. He went off at a tangent. He might buy a motor-car, he might buy one of these here things that will play you a piano26 – that would make old Buggins sit up! He could pretend he had learnt to play – he might buy a bicycle and a cyclist suit….
A terrific multitude of plans of what he might do, and in particular of what he might buy, came crowding into his brain, and he did not so much fall asleep as pass into a disorder of dreams in which he was driving a four-horse Tip-Top coach down Sandgate Hill (‘I shall have to be precious careful’), wearing innumerable suits of clothes, and through some terrible accident wearing them all wrong. Consequently, he was being laughed at. The coach vanished in the interest of the costume. He was wearing golfing suits and a silk hat. This passed into a nightmare that he was promenading on the Leas in a Highland costume, with a kilt that kept shrinking, and Shalford was following him with three policemen. ‘He's my assistant,’ Shalford kept repeating; ‘he's escaped. He's an escaped Improver. Keep by him, and in a minute you'll have to run him in. I know ‘em. We say they wash, but they won't.’… He could feel the kilt creeping up his legs. He would have tugged at it to pull it down, only his arms were paralyzed. He had an impression of giddy crises. He uttered a shriek of despair. ‘Now!’ said Shalford. He woke in horror, his quilt had slipped off the bed.
He had a fancy he had just been called, that he had somehow overslept himself and missed going down for dusting. Then he perceived it was still night, and light by reason of the moonlight, and that he was no longer in the Emporium. He wondered where he could be. He had a curious fancy that the world had been swept and rolled up like a carpet, and that he was nowhere. It occurred to him that perhaps he was mad. ‘Buggins!’ he said. There was no answer, not even the defensive snore. No room, no Buggins, nothing!
Then he remembered better. He sat on the edge of his bed for some time. Could anyone have seen his face, they would have seen it white, and drawn with staring eyes. Then he groaned weakly. ‘Twenty-six thousand pounds!’ he whispered.
Just then it presented itself in an almost horribly overwhelming mass.
He remade his bed and returned to it. He was still dreadfully wakeful. It was suddenly clear to him that he need never trouble to get up punctually at seven again. That fact shone out upon him like a star through clouds. He was free to lie in bed as long as he liked, get up when he liked, go where he liked; have eggs every morning for breakfast, or rashers, or bloater-paste,27 or… Also he was going to astonish Miss Walshingham….
Astonish her and astonish her….
He was awakened by a thrush singing in the fresh dawn. The whole room was flooded with warm golden sunshine. ‘I say! said the thrush. ‘I say! I say! Twelve ‘undred a year! Twelve ‘Undred a Year! Twelve ‘UNDRED a Year! I say! I say! I say!’
He sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles. Then he jumped out of bed and began dressing very eagerly. He did not want to lose any time in beginning the new life.
BOOK II
MR COOTE THE CHAPERON
CHAPTER THE FIRST
THE NEW CONDITIONS
§ 1
There comes a gent
lemanly figure into these events, and for a space takes a leading part therein, a Good Influence, a refined and amiable figure, Mr Chester Coote. You must figure him as about to enter our story, walking with a curious rectitude of bearing through the evening dusk towards the Public Library, erect, large-headed – he had a great big head, full of the suggestion of a powerful mind well under control – with a large official-looking envelope in his white and knuckly hand. In the other he carries a gold-handled cane. He wears a silken grey jacket suit,1 buttoned up, and anon he coughs behind the official envelope. He has a prominent nose, slaty grey eyes, and a certain heaviness about the mouth. His mouth hangs breathing open, with a slight protrusion of the lower jaw. His straw hat is pulled down a little in front, and he looks each person he passes in the eye, and, directly his look is answered, looks away.
Thus Mr Chester Coote, as he was on the evening when he came upon Kipps. He was a local house-agent, and a most active and gentlemanly person, a conscious gentleman, equally aware of society and the serious side of life. From amateur theatricals of a nice refined sort to science classes, few things were able to get along without him. He supplied a fine full bass, a little flat and quavery perhaps, but very abundant, to the St Stylites' choir….
He goes on towards the Public Library, lifts the envelope in salutation to a passing curate, smiles and enters… .
It was in the Public Library that he came upon Kipps.
By that time Kipps had been rich a week or more, and the change in his circumstances was visible upon his person. He was wearing a new suit of drab flannels, a Panama hat, and a red tie for the first time, and he carried a silver-mounted stick with a tortoiseshell handle. He felt extraordinarily different, perhaps more different than he really was, from the meek Improver of a week ago. He felt as he felt Dukes must feel, yet at bottom he was still modest. He was leaning on his stick and regarding the indicator with a respect that never palled. He faced round to meet Mr Coote's overflowing smile.