KIPPS

by WordFire Press

  “They’re big ’ouses,” said Ann directly the elevations were unrolled.

  Kipps listened to the architect with round eyes and an exuberant caution in his manner, anxious not to commit himself further than he had done to the enterprise, and the architect pointed out the Features and other objects of interest with the scalpel belonging to a pocket manicure set that he carried. Ann watched Kipps’ face and communicated with him furtively over the architect’s head. “Not so big,” said Ann’s lips.

  “It’s a bit big for what I meant,” said Kipps, with a reassuring eye on Ann.

  “You won’t think it big when you see it up,” said the architect; “you take my word for that.”

  “We don’t want no more than six bedrooms,” said Kipps.

  “Make this one a box room, then,” said the architect.

  A feeling of impotence silenced Kipps for a time.

  “Now which,” said the architect, spreading them out, “is it to be?”

  He flattened down the plans of the most ornate mansion to show it to better effect.

  Kipps wanted to know how much each would cost “at the outside,” which led to much alarmed signaling from Ann. But the architect could estimate only in the most general way.

  They were not really committed to anything when the architect went away; Kipps had promised to think it over, that was all.

  “We can’t ’ave that ’ouse,” said Ann.

  “They’re miles too big—all of them,” agreed Kipps.

  “You’d want—Four servants wouldn’t be ’ardly enough,” said Ann.

  Kipps went to the hearthrug and spread himself. His tone was almost offhand. “Nex’ time ’e comes,” said Kipps, “I’ll ’splain to him. It isn’t at all the sort of thing we want. It’s—it’s a misunderstanding. You got no occasion to be anxious ’bout it, Ann.”

  “I don’t see much good really in building an ’ouse at all,” said Ann.

  “Oo, we got to build a ’ouse now we begun,” said Kipps. “But, now, supposin’ we ’ad—”

  He spread out the most modest of the three plans and scratched his cheek.

  6

  It was unfortunate that Old Kipps came over the next day.

  Old Kipps always produced peculiar states of mind in his nephew, a rash assertiveness, a disposition towards display unlike his usual self. There had been great difficulty in reconciling both these old people to the Pornick mesalliance, and at times the controversy echoed in Old Kipps’ expressed thoughts. This perhaps it was, and no ignoble vanity, that set the note of florid successfulness going in Kipps’ conversation whenever his uncle appeared. Mrs. Kipps was, as a matter of fact, not reconciled at all; she had declined all invitations to come over on the ’bus, and was a taciturn hostess on the one occasion when the young people called at the toy shop en route for Mrs. Pornick. She displayed a tendency to sniff that was clearly due to pride rather than catarrh, and except for telling Ann she hoped she would not feel too “stuck-up” about her marriage, confined her conversation to her nephew or the infinite. The call was a brief one and made up chiefly of pauses, no refreshment was offered or asked for, and Ann departed with a singularly high color. For some reason she would not call at the toy shop when they found themselves again in New Romney.

  But Old Kipps, having adventured over and tried the table of the new menage and found it to his taste, showed many signs of softening towards Ann. He came again and then again. He would come over by the ’bus, and except when his mouth was absolutely full, he would give his nephew one solid and continuous mass of advice of the most subtle and disturbing description, until it was time to toddle back to the High Street for the afternoon ’bus. He would walk with him to the sea front, and commence pourparlers with boatmen for the purchase of one of their boats. “You ought to keep a boat of your own,” he said, though Kipps was a singularly poor sailor—or he would pursue a plan that was forming in his mind in which he should own and manage what he called “weekly” property in the less conspicuous streets of Hythe. The cream of that was to be a weekly collection of rents in person, the nearest approach to feudal splendor left in this democratized country. He gave no hint of the source of the capital he designed for this investment and at times it would appear he intended it as an occupation for his nephew rather than himself.

  But there remained something in his manner towards Ann, in the glances of scrutiny he gave her unawares, that kept Kipps alertly expansive whenever he was about. And in all sorts of ways. It was on account of Old Kipps, for example, that our Kipps plunged one day, a golden plunge, and brought home a box of cummerbundy ninepenny cigars, and substituted blue label Old Methusaleh Four Stars for the common and generally satisfactory white brand.

  “Some of this is whiskey, my boy,” said Old Kipps when he tasted it, smacking critical lips.

  “Saw a lot of young officer fellers coming along,” said Old Kipps. “You ought to join the volunteers, my boy, and get to know a few.”

  “I dessay I shall,” said Kipps. “Later.”

  “They’d make you an officer, you know, ’n no time. They want officers,” said Old Kipps. “It isn’t everyone can afford it. They’d be regular glad to ’ave you … Ain’t bort a dog yet?”

  “Not yet, uncle. ’Ave a segar?”

  “Not a moty car?”

  “Not yet, uncle.”

  “There’s no ’urry ’bout that. And don’t get one of these ’ere trashy cheap ones when you do get it, my boy. Get one as’ll last a lifetime … I’m surprised you don’t ’ire a bit more.”

  “Ann don’t seem to fency a moty car,” said Kipps.

  “Ah!” said Old Kipps, “I expect not,” and glanced a comment at the door. “She ain’t used to going out,” he said. “More at ’ome indoors.”

  “Fact is,” said Kipps, hastily, “we’re thinking of building a ’ouse.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, my boy,” began Old Kipps, but his nephew was routing in the chiffonier drawer amidst the plans. He got them in time to check some further comment on Ann. “Um,” said the old gentleman, a little impressed by the extraordinary odor and the unusual transparency of the tracing paper Kipps put into his hands. “Thinking of building a ’ouse, are you?”

  Kipps began with the most modest of the three projects.

  Old Kipps read slowly through his silver-rimmed spectacles: “Plan of a ’ouse for Arthur Kipps Esquire—Um.”

  He didn’t warm to the project all at once, and Ann drifted into the room to find him still scrutinizing the architect’s proposals a little doubtfully.

  “We couldn’t find a decent ’ouse anywhere,” said Kipps, leaning against the table and assuming an offhand note. “I didn’t see why we shouldn’t run up one for ourselves.” Old Kipps could not help liking the tone of that.

  “We thought we might see—” said Ann.

  “It’s a spekerlation, of course,” said Old Kipps, and held the plan at a distance of two feet or more from his glasses and frowned. “This isn’t exactly the ’ouse I should expect you to ’ave thought of, though,” he said. “Practically it’s a villa. It’s the sort of ’ouse a bank clerk might ’ave. ’Tisn’t what I should call a gentleman’s ’ouse, Artie.”

  “It’s plain, of course,” said Kipps, standing beside his uncle and looking down at this plan, which certainly did seem a little less magnificent now than it had at the first encounter.

  “You mustn’t ’ave it too plain,” said Old Kipps.

  “If it’s comfortable—” Ann hazarded.

  Old Kipps glanced at her over his spectacles. “You ain’t comfortable, my gal, in this world, not if you don’t live up to your position,” so putting compactly into contemporary English that fine old phrase, noblesse oblige.

  “A ’ouse of this sort is what a retired tradesman might ’ave, or some little whippersnapper of a s’liciter. But you—”

  “Course that isn’t the o’ny plan,” said Kipps, and tried the middle one.

  But it was the third one
which won over Old Kipps. “Now that’s a ’ouse, my boy,” he said at the sight of it.

  Ann came and stood just behind her husband’s shoulder while Old Kipps expanded upon the desirability of the larger scheme. “You ought to ’ave a billiard room,” he said; “I don’t see that, but all the rest’s all right. A lot of these ’ere officers ’ere ’ud be glad of a game of billiards …”

  “What’s all these pots?” said Old Kipps.

  “S’rubbery,” said Kipps. “Flow’ing s’rubs.”

  “There’s eleven bedrooms in that ’ouse,” said Ann. “It’s a bit of a lot, ain’t it, uncle?”

  “You’ll want ’em, my girl. As you get on, you’ll be ’aving visitors. Friends of your ’usband, p’raps, from the School of Musketry, what you want ’im to get on with. You can’t never tell.”

  “If we ’ave a great s’rubbery,” Ann ventured, “we shall ’ave to keep a gardener.”

  “If you don’t ’ave a s’rubbery,” said Old Kipps, with a note of patient reasoning, “’ow are you to prevent every jackanapes that goes by, starin’ into your drorin’ room winder—p’raps when you get someone a bit special to entertain?”

  “We ain’t used to a s’rubbery,” said Ann, mulishly; “we get on very well ’ere.”

  “It isn’t what you’re used to,” said Old Kipps, “it’s what you ought to ’ave now.” And with that Ann dropped out of the discussion.

  “Study and lib’ry,” Old Kipps read. “That’s right. I see a Tantalus the other day over Brookland, the very thing for a gentleman’s study. I’ll try and get over and bid for it …”

  By ’bus time Old Kipps was quite enthusiastic about the house building, and it seemed to be definitely settled that the largest plan was the one decided upon.

  But Ann had said nothing further in the matter.

  7

  When Kipps returned from seeing his uncle into the ’bus—there always seemed a certain doubt whether that portly figure would go into the little red “Tip-Top” box—he found Ann still standing by the table, looking with an expression of comprehensive disapproval at the three plans.

  “There don’t seem much the matter with uncle,” said Kipps, assuming the hearthrug, “spite of ’is ’eartburn. ’E ’opped up them steps like a bird.”

  Ann remained staring at the plans.

  “You don’t like them plans?” hazarded Kipps.

  “No, I don’t, Artie.”

  “We got to build somethin’ now.”

  “But—it’s a gentleman’s ’ouse, Artie!”

  “It’s—it’s a decent size, o’ course.”

  Kipps took a flirting look at the drawing and went to the window.

  “Look at the cleanin’. Free servants ’ll be lost in that ’ouse, Artie.”

  “We must ’ave servants,” said Kipps.

  Ann looked despondently at her future residence.

  “We got to keep up our position, any’ow,” said Kipps, turning towards her. “It stands to reason, Ann, we got a position. Very well! I can’t ’ave you scrubbin’ floors. You got to ’ave a servant and you got to manage a ’ouse. You wouldn’t ’ave me ashamed—”

  Ann opened her lips and did not speak.

  “What?” asked Kipps.

  “Nothing,” said Ann, “only I did want it to be a little ’ouse, Artie. I wanted it to be a ’andy little ’ouse, just for us.”

  Kipps’ face was suddenly flushed and mulish. He took up the curiously smelling tracings again. “I’m not a-going to be looked down upon,” he said. “It’s not only uncle I’m thinking of!”

  Ann stared at him.

  Kipps went on. “I won’t ’ave that young Walshingham f’r instance, sneering and sniffling at me. Making out as if we was all wrong. I see ’im yesterday … Nor Coote neether. I’m as good—we’re as good. Whatever’s ’appened.”

  Silence and the rustle of plans.

  He looked up and saw Ann’s eyes bright with tears. For a moment the two stared at one another.

  “We’ll ’ave the big ’ouse,” said Ann, with a gulp. “I didn’t think of that, Artie.”

  Her aspect was fierce and resolute, and she struggled with emotion. “We’ll ’ave the big ’ouse,” she repeated. “They shan’t say I dragged you down wiv’ me—none of them shan’t say that. I’ve thought—I’ve always been afraid of that.”

  Kipps looked again at the plan, and suddenly the grand house had become very grand indeed. He blew.

  “No, Artie, none of them shan’t say that,” and with something blind in her motions Ann tried to turn the plan round to her …

  After all, Kipps thought there might be something to say for the milder project … But he had gone so far that now he did not know how to say it.

  And so the plans went out to the builders, and in a little while Kipps was committed to two thousand five hundred pounds worth of building. But then, you know, he had an income of twelve hundred a year.

  8

  It is extraordinary what minor difficulties cluster about house building.

  “I say, Ann,” remarked Kipps one day, “we shall ’ave to call this little ’ouse by a name. I was thinking of ’Ome Cottage. But I dunno whether ’Ome Cottage is quite the thing like. All these little fishermen’s places are called cottages.”

  “I like ʻcottage’,” said Ann. “

  It’s got eleven bedrooms, y’see,” said Kipps. “I don’t see ’ow you can call it a cottage with more bedrooms than four. Prop’ly speaking, it’s a large villa. Prop’ly, it’s almost a big ’ouse. Leastways a ’Ouse.”

  “Well,” said Ann, “if you must call it villa—Home Villa … I wish it wasn’t.”

  Kipps meditated.

  “’Ow about Eureka Villa?” he said, raising his voice.

  “What’s Eureka?”

  “It’s a name,” he said. “There used to be Eureka Dress Fasteners. There’s lots of names, come to think of it, to be got out of a shop. There’s Pyjama Villa. I remember that in the hosiery. No, come to think, that wouldn’t do. But Maraposa—sort of oatmeal cloth, that was … No! Eureka’s better.”

  Ann meditated. “It seems silly like to ’ave a name that don’t mean much.”

  “Perhaps it does,” said Kipps. “Though it’s what people ’ave to do.” He became meditative. “I got it!” he cried.

  “Not Oreeka!” said Ann.

  “No! There used to be a ’ouse at Hastings opposite our school—quite a big ’ouse it was—St. Ann’s. Now that—”

  “No,” said Mrs. Kipps with decision. “Thanking you kindly, but I don’t have no butcher boys making game of me …”

  They consulted Carshot, who suggested after some days of reflection, Waddycombe, as a graceful reminder of Kipps’ grandfather; Old Kipps, who was for “Upton Manor House,” where he had once been second footman; Buggins, who favored either a stern simple number, “Number One”—if there were no other houses there, or something patriotic, as “Empire Villa,” and Pearce, who inclined to “Sandringham”; but in spite of all this help they were still undecided when, amidst violent perturbations of the soul, and after the most complex and difficult hagglings, wranglings, fears, muddles and goings to and fro, Kipps became the joyless owner of a freehold plot of three-eighths of an acre, and saw the turf being wheeled away from the site that should one day be his home.

  Chapter the Second

  The Callers

  The Kippses sat at their midday dinner table and amidst the vestiges of rhubarb pie, and discussed two postcards the one o’clock post had brought. It was a rare bright moment of sunshine in a wet and windy day in the March that followed their marriage. Kipps was attired in a suit of brown, with a tie of fashionable green, while Ann wore one of those picturesque loose robes that are usually associated with sandals and advanced ideas. But there weren’t any sandals on Ann or any advanced ideas, and the robe had come quite recently through the counsels of Mrs. Sid Pornick. “It’s Artlike,” said Kipps, giving way. “It’s more comfortable,” sai
d Ann. The room looked out by French windows upon a little patch of green and the Hythe parade. The parade was all shiny wet with rain, and the green-grey sea tumbled and tumbled between parade and sky.

  The Kipps’ furniture, except for certain chromo lithographs of Kipps’ incidental choice that struck a quiet note amidst the wallpaper, had been tactfully forced by an expert salesman, and it was in a style of mediocre elegance. There was a sideboard of carved oak that had only one fault, it reminded Kipps at times of wood carving, and its panel of bevelled glass now reflected the back of his head. On its shelf were two books from Parsons’ Library, each with a “place” marked by a slip of paper; neither of the Kippses could have told you the title of either book they read, much less the author’s name. There was an ebonized overmantel set with phials and pots of brilliant color, each duplicated by looking glass, and bearing also a pair of Chinese jars made in Birmingham, a wedding present from Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Pornick, and several sumptuous Japanese fans. And there was a turkey carpet of great richness. In addition to these modern exploits of Messrs. Bunt and Bubble, there were two inactive tall clocks, whose extreme dilapidation appealed to the connoisseur; a terrestrial and a celestial globe, the latter deeply indented; a number of good old iron moulded and dusty books, and a stuffed owl wanting one (easily replaceable) glass eye, obtained by the exertions of Uncle Kipps. The table equipage was as much as possible like Mrs. Bindon Botting’s, only more costly, and in addition there were green and crimson wine glasses—though the Kippses never drank wine.