The Phoenix and the Carpet

by E. Nesbit

  CHAPTER 6. DOING GOOD

  'We shan't be able to go anywhere on the carpet for a whole week,though,' said Robert.

  'And I'm glad of it,' said Jane, unexpectedly.

  'Glad?' said Cyril; 'GLAD?'

  It was breakfast-time, and mother's letter, telling them how they wereall going for Christmas to their aunt's at Lyndhurst, and how father andmother would meet them there, having been read by every one, lay on thetable, drinking hot bacon-fat with one corner and eating marmalade withthe other.

  'Yes, glad,' said Jane. 'I don't want any more things to happenjust now. I feel like you do when you've been to three parties in aweek--like we did at granny's once--and extras in between, toys andchocs and things like that. I want everything to be just real, and nofancy things happening at all.' 'I don't like being obliged to keepthings from mother,' said Anthea. 'I don't know why, but it makes mefeel selfish and mean.'

  'If we could only get the mater to believe it, we might take her to thejolliest places,' said Cyril, thoughtfully. 'As it is, we've just got tobe selfish and mean--if it is that--but I don't feel it is.'

  'I KNOW it isn't, but I FEEL it is,' said Anthea, 'and that's just asbad.'

  'It's worse,' said Robert; 'if you knew it and didn't feel it, itwouldn't matter so much.'

  'That's being a hardened criminal, father says,' put in Cyril, and hepicked up mother's letter and wiped its corners with his handkerchief,to whose colour a trifle of bacon-fat and marmalade made but littledifference.

  'We're going to-morrow, anyhow,' said Robert. 'Don't,' he added, witha good-boy expression on his face--'don't let's be ungrateful for ourblessings; don't let's waste the day in saying how horrid it is to keepsecrets from mother, when we all know Anthea tried all she knew to giveher the secret, and she wouldn't take it. Let's get on the carpet andhave a jolly good wish. You'll have time enough to repent of things allnext week.'

  'Yes,' said Cyril, 'let's. It's not really wrong.'

  'Well, look here,' said Anthea. 'You know there's something aboutChristmas that makes you want to be good--however little you wish it atother times. Couldn't we wish the carpet to take us somewhere where weshould have the chance to do some good and kind action? It would be anadventure just the same,' she pleaded.

  'I don't mind,' said Cyril. 'We shan't know where we're going, andthat'll be exciting. No one knows what'll happen. We'd best put on ourouters in case--'

  'We might rescue a traveller buried in the snow, like St Bernard dogs,with barrels round our necks,' said Jane, beginning to be interested.

  'Or we might arrive just in time to witness a will being signed--moretea, please,' said Robert, 'and we should see the old man hide it awayin the secret cupboard; and then, after long years, when the rightfulheir was in despair, we should lead him to the hidden panel and--'

  'Yes,' interrupted Anthea; 'or we might be taken to some freezing garretin a German town, where a poor little pale, sick child--'

  'We haven't any German money,' interrupted Cyril, 'so THAT'S no go. WhatI should like would be getting into the middle of a war and getting holdof secret intelligence and taking it to the general, and he would makeme a lieutenant or a scout, or a hussar.'

  When breakfast was cleared away, Anthea swept the carpet, and thechildren sat down on it, together with the Phoenix, who had beenespecially invited, as a Christmas treat, to come with them and witnessthe good and kind action they were about to do.

  Four children and one bird were ready, and the wish was wished.

  Every one closed its eyes, so as to feel the topsy-turvy swirl of thecarpet's movement as little as possible.

  When the eyes were opened again the children found themselves on thecarpet, and the carpet was in its proper place on the floor of their ownnursery at Camden Town.

  'I say,' said Cyril, 'here's a go!'

  'Do you think it's worn out? The wishing part of it, I mean?' Robertanxiously asked the Phoenix.

  'It's not that,' said the Phoenix; 'but--well--what did you wish--?'

  'Oh! I see what it means,' said Robert, with deep disgust; 'it's likethe end of a fairy story in a Sunday magazine. How perfectly beastly!'

  'You mean it means we can do kind and good actions where we are? I see.I suppose it wants us to carry coals for the cook or make clothesfor the bare heathens. Well, I simply won't. And the last day andeverything. Look here!' Cyril spoke loudly and firmly. 'We want to gosomewhere really interesting, where we have a chance of doing somethinggood and kind; we don't want to do it here, but somewhere else. See?Now, then.'

  The obedient carpet started instantly, and the four children and onebird fell in a heap together, and as they fell were plunged in perfectdarkness.

  'Are you all there?' said Anthea, breathlessly, through the black dark.Every one owned that it was there.

  'Where are we? Oh! how shivery and wet it is! Ugh!--oh!--I've put myhand in a puddle!'

  'Has any one got any matches?' said Anthea, hopelessly. She felt surethat no one would have any.

  It was then that Robert, with a radiant smile of triumph that was quitewasted in the darkness, where, of course, no one could see anything,drew out of his pocket a box of matches, struck a match and lighted acandle--two candles. And every one, with its mouth open, blinked at thesudden light.

  'Well done Bobs,' said his sisters, and even Cyril's natural brotherlyfeelings could not check his admiration of Robert's foresight.

  'I've always carried them about ever since the lone tower day,' saidRobert, with modest pride. 'I knew we should want them some day. I keptthe secret well, didn't I?'

  'Oh, yes,' said Cyril, with fine scorn. 'I found them the Sunday after,when I was feeling in your Norfolks for the knife you borrowed off me.But I thought you'd only sneaked them for Chinese lanterns, or readingin bed by.'

  'Bobs,' said Anthea, suddenly, 'do you know where we are? This isthe underground passage, and look there--there's the money and themoney-bags, and everything.'

  By this time the ten eyes had got used to the light of the candles, andno one could help seeing that Anthea spoke the truth.

  'It seems an odd place to do good and kind acts in, though,' said Jane.'There's no one to do them to.'

  'Don't you be too sure,' said Cyril; 'just round the next turning wemight find a prisoner who has languished here for years and years, andwe could take him out on our carpet and restore him to his sorrowingfriends.'

  'Of course we could,' said Robert, standing up and holding the candleabove his head to see further off; 'or we might find the bones of apoor prisoner and take them to his friends to be buried properly--that'salways a kind action in books, though I never could see what bonesmatter.'

  'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane.

  'I know exactly where we shall find the bones, too,' Robert went on.'You see that dark arch just along the passage? Well, just insidethere--'

  'If you don't stop going on like that,' said Jane, firmly, 'I shallscream, and then I'll faint--so now then!'

  'And _I_ will, too,' said Anthea.

  Robert was not pleased at being checked in his flight of fancy.

  'You girls will never be great writers,' he said bitterly. 'They justlove to think of things in dungeons, and chains, and knobbly bare humanbones, and--'

  Jane had opened her mouth to scream, but before she could decide how youbegan when you wanted to faint, the golden voice of the Phoenix spokethrough the gloom.

  'Peace!' it said; 'there are no bones here except the small but usefulsets that you have inside you. And you did not invite me to come outwith you to hear you talk about bones, but to see you do some good andkind action.'

  'We can't do it here,' said Robert, sulkily.

  'No,' rejoined the bird. 'The only thing we can do here, it seems, is totry to frighten our little sisters.'

  'He didn't, really, and I'm not so VERY little,' said Jane, ratherungratefully.

  Robert was silent. It was Cyril who suggested that perhaps they hadbetter take the money and go.

  'That
wouldn't be a kind act, except to ourselves; and it wouldn't begood, whatever way you look at it,' said Anthea, 'to take money that'snot ours.'

  'We might take it and spend it all on benefits to the poor and aged,'said Cyril.

  'That wouldn't make it right to steal,' said Anthea, stoutly.

  'I don't know,' said Cyril. They were all standing up now. 'Stealing istaking things that belong to some one else, and there's no one else.'

  'It can't be stealing if--'

  'That's right,' said Robert, with ironical approval; 'stand here all dayarguing while the candles burn out. You'll like it awfully when it's alldark again--and bony.'

  'Let's get out, then,' said Anthea. 'We can argue as we go.' So theyrolled up the carpet and went. But when they had crept along to theplace where the passage led into the topless tower they found the wayblocked by a great stone, which they could not move.

  'There!' said Robert. 'I hope you're satisfied!'

  'Everything has two ends,' said the Phoenix, softly; 'even a quarrel ora secret passage.'

  So they turned round and went back, and Robert was made to go first withone of the candles, because he was the one who had begun to talk aboutbones. And Cyril carried the carpet.

  'I wish you hadn't put bones into our heads,' said Jane, as they wentalong.

  'I didn't; you always had them. More bones than brains,' said Robert.

  The passage was long, and there were arches and steps and turnings anddark alcoves that the girls did not much like passing. The passage endedin a flight of steps. Robert went up them.

  Suddenly he staggered heavily back on to the following feet of Jane, andeverybody screamed, 'Oh! what is it?'

  'I've only bashed my head in,' said Robert, when he had groaned for sometime; 'that's all. Don't mention it; I like it. The stairs just go rightslap into the ceiling, and it's a stone ceiling. You can't do good andkind actions underneath a paving-stone.'

  'Stairs aren't made to lead just to paving-stones as a general rule,'said the Phoenix. 'Put your shoulder to the wheel.'

  'There isn't any wheel,' said the injured Robert, still rubbing hishead.

  But Cyril had pushed past him to the top stair, and was already shovinghis hardest against the stone above. Of course, it did not give in theleast.

  'If it's a trap-door--' said Cyril. And he stopped shoving and began tofeel about with his hands.

  'Yes, there is a bolt. I can't move it.'

  By a happy chance Cyril had in his pocket the oil-can of his father'sbicycle; he put the carpet down at the foot of the stairs, and he layon his back, with his head on the top step and his feet straggling downamong his young relations, and he oiled the bolt till the drops of rustand oil fell down on his face. One even went into his mouth--open, as hepanted with the exertion of keeping up this unnatural position. Thenhe tried again, but still the bolt would not move. So now he tied hishandkerchief--the one with the bacon-fat and marmalade on it--to thebolt, and Robert's handkerchief to that, in a reef knot, which cannotcome undone however much you pull, and, indeed, gets tighter and tighterthe more you pull it. This must not be confused with a granny knot,which comes undone if you look at it. And then he and Robert pulled,and the girls put their arms round their brothers and pulled too, andsuddenly the bolt gave way with a rusty scrunch, and they all rolledtogether to the bottom of the stairs--all but the Phoenix, which hadtaken to its wings when the pulling began.

  Nobody was hurt much, because the rolled-up carpet broke their fall; andnow, indeed, the shoulders of the boys were used to some purpose, forthe stone allowed them to heave it up. They felt it give; dust fellfreely on them.

  'Now, then,' cried Robert, forgetting his head and his temper, 'push alltogether. One, two, three!'

  The stone was heaved up. It swung up on a creaking, unwilling hinge, andshowed a growing oblong of dazzling daylight; and it fell back with abang against something that kept it upright. Every one climbed out,but there was not room for every one to stand comfortably in thelittle paved house where they found themselves, so when the Phoenix hadfluttered up from the darkness they let the stone down, and it closedlike a trap-door, as indeed it was.

  You can have no idea how dusty and dirty the children were. Fortunatelythere was no one to see them but each other. The place they were inwas a little shrine, built on the side of a road that went winding upthrough yellow-green fields to the topless tower. Below them were fieldsand orchards, all bare boughs and brown furrows, and little houses andgardens. The shrine was a kind of tiny chapel with no front wall--just aplace for people to stop and rest in and wish to be good. So the Phoenixtold them. There was an image that had once been brightly coloured, butthe rain and snow had beaten in through the open front of the shrine,and the poor image was dull and weather-stained. Under it was written:'St Jean de Luz. Priez pour nous.' It was a sad little place, veryneglected and lonely, and yet it was nice, Anthea thought, that poortravellers should come to this little rest-house in the hurry and worryof their journeyings and be quiet for a few minutes, and think aboutbeing good. The thought of St Jean de Luz--who had, no doubt, in histime, been very good and kind--made Anthea want more than ever to dosomething kind and good.

  'Tell us,' she said to the Phoenix, 'what is the good and kind actionthe carpet brought us here to do?'

  'I think it would be kind to find the owners of the treasure and tellthem about it,' said Cyril.

  'And give it them ALL?' said Jane.

  'Yes. But whose is it?'

  'I should go to the first house and ask the name of the owner of thecastle,' said the golden bird, and really the idea seemed a good one.

  They dusted each other as well as they could and went down the road. Alittle way on they found a tiny spring, bubbling out of the hillside andfalling into a rough stone basin surrounded by draggled hart's-tongueferns, now hardly green at all. Here the children washed their handsand faces and dried them on their pocket-handkerchiefs, which always,on these occasions, seem unnaturally small. Cyril's and Robert'shandkerchiefs, indeed, rather undid the effects of the wash. But inspite of this the party certainly looked cleaner than before.

  The first house they came to was a little white house with greenshutters and a slate roof. It stood in a prim little garden, and downeach side of the neat path were large stone vases for flowers to growin; but all the flowers were dead now.

  Along one side of the house was a sort of wide veranda, built of polesand trellis-work, and a vine crawled all over it. It was wider than ourEnglish verandas, and Anthea thought it must look lovely when thegreen leaves and the grapes were there; but now there were only dry,reddish-brown stalks and stems, with a few withered leaves caught inthem.

  The children walked up to the front door. It was green and narrow. Achain with a handle hung beside it, and joined itself quite openly to arusty bell that hung under the porch. Cyril had pulled the bell andits noisy clang was dying away before the terrible thought came to all.Cyril spoke it.

  'My hat!' he breathed. 'We don't know any French!'

  At this moment the door opened. A very tall, lean lady, with paleringlets like whitey-brown paper or oak shavings, stood before them. Shehad an ugly grey dress and a black silk apron. Her eyes were smalland grey and not pretty, and the rims were red, as though she had beencrying.

  She addressed the party in something that sounded like a foreignlanguage, and ended with something which they were sure was a question.Of course, no one could answer it.

  'What does she say?' Robert asked, looking down into the hollow of hisjacket, where the Phoenix was nestling. But before the Phoenix couldanswer, the whitey-brown lady's face was lighted up by a most charmingsmile.

  'You--you ar-r-re fr-r-rom the England!' she cried. 'I love so muchthe England. Mais entrez--entrez donc tous! Enter, then--enter all. Oneessuyes his feet on the carpet.' She pointed to the mat.

  'We only wanted to ask--'

  'I shall say you all that what you wish,' said the lady. 'Enter only!'

  So they all went in, wipin
g their feet on a very clean mat, and puttingthe carpet in a safe corner of the veranda.

  'The most beautiful days of my life,' said the lady, as she shut thedoor, 'did pass themselves in England. And since long time I have notheard an English voice to repeal me the past.'

  This warm welcome embarrassed every one, but most the boys, for thefloor of the hall was of such very clean red and white tiles, andthe floor of the sitting-room so very shiny--like a blacklooking-glass--that each felt as though he had on far more boots thanusual, and far noisier.

  There was a wood fire, very small and very bright, on the hearth--neatlittle logs laid on brass fire-dogs. Some portraits of powdered ladiesand gentlemen hung in oval frames on the pale walls. There were silvercandlesticks on the mantelpiece, and there were chairs and a table, veryslim and polite, with slender legs. The room was extremely bare, butwith a bright foreign bareness that was very cheerful, in an odd way ofits own. At the end of the polished table a very un-English little boysat on a footstool in a high-backed, uncomfortable-looking chair. Hewore black velvet, and the kind of collar--all frills and lacey--thatRobert would rather have died than wear; but then the little French boywas much younger than Robert.

  'Oh, how pretty!' said every one. But no one meant the little Frenchboy, with the velvety short knickerbockers and the velvety short hair.

  What every one admired was a little, little Christmas-tree, very green,and standing in a very red little flower-pot, and hung round with verybright little things made of tinsel and coloured paper. There were tinycandles on the tree, but they were not lighted yet.

  'But yes--is it not that it is genteel?' said the lady. 'Sit down youthen, and let us see.'

  The children sat down in a row on the stiff chairs against the wall, andthe lady lighted a long, slim red taper at the wood flame, and then shedrew the curtains and lit the little candles, and when they were alllighted the little French boy suddenly shouted, 'Bravo, ma tante! Oh,que c'est gentil,' and the English children shouted 'Hooray!'

  Then there was a struggle in the breast of Robert, and out fluttered thePhoenix--spread his gold wings, flew to the top of the Christmas-tree,and perched there.

  'Ah! catch it, then,' cried the lady; 'it will itself burn--your genteelparrakeet!'

  'It won't,' said Robert, 'thank you.'

  And the little French boy clapped his clean and tidy hands; but the ladywas so anxious that the Phoenix fluttered down and walked up and down onthe shiny walnut-wood table.

  'Is it that it talks?' asked the lady.

  And the Phoenix replied in excellent French. It said, 'Parfaitement,madame!'

  'Oh, the pretty parrakeet,' said the lady. 'Can it say still of otherthings?'

  And the Phoenix replied, this time in English, 'Why are you sad so nearChristmas-time?'

  The children looked at it with one gasp of horror and surprise, forthe youngest of them knew that it is far from manners to notice thatstrangers have been crying, and much worse to ask them the reason oftheir tears. And, of course, the lady began to cry again, very muchindeed, after calling the Phoenix a bird without a heart; and she couldnot find her handkerchief, so Anthea offered hers, which was still verydamp and no use at all. She also hugged the lady, and this seemed to beof more use than the handkerchief, so that presently the lady stoppedcrying, and found her own handkerchief and dried her eyes, and calledAnthea a cherished angel.

  'I am sorry we came just when you were so sad,' said Anthea, 'but wereally only wanted to ask you whose that castle is on the hill.'

  'Oh, my little angel,' said the poor lady, sniffing, 'to-day and forhundreds of years the castle is to us, to our family. To-morrow it mustthat I sell it to some strangers--and my little Henri, who ignoresall, he will not have never the lands paternal. But what will you? Hisfather, my brother--Mr the Marquis--has spent much of money, and it themust, despite the sentiments of familial respect, that I admit that mysainted father he also--'

  'How would you feel if you found a lot of money--hundreds and thousandsof gold pieces?' asked Cyril.

  The lady smiled sadly.

  'Ah! one has already recounted to you the legend?' she said. 'It istrue that one says that it is long time; oh! but long time, one of ourancestors has hid a treasure--of gold, and of gold, and of gold--enoughto enrich my little Henri for the life. But all that, my children, it isbut the accounts of fays--'

  'She means fairy stories,' whispered the Phoenix to Robert. 'Tell herwhat you have found.'

  So Robert told, while Anthea and Jane hugged the lady for fear sheshould faint for joy, like people in books, and they hugged her with theearnest, joyous hugs of unselfish delight.

  'It's no use explaining how we got in,' said Robert, when he had toldof the finding of the treasure, 'because you would find it a littledifficult to understand, and much more difficult to believe. But we canshow you where the gold is and help you to fetch it away.'

  The lady looked doubtfully at Robert as she absently returned the hugsof the girls.

  'No, he's not making it up,' said Anthea; 'it's true, TRUE, TRUE!--andwe are so glad.'

  'You would not be capable to torment an old woman?' she said; 'and it isnot possible that it be a dream.'

  'It really IS true,' said Cyril; 'and I congratulate you very much.'

  His tone of studied politeness seemed to convince more than the rapturesof the others.

  'If I do not dream,' she said, 'Henri come to Manon--and you--you shallcome all with me to Mr the Curate. Is it not?'

  Manon was a wrinkled old woman with a red and yellow handkerchieftwisted round her head. She took Henri, who was already sleepy with theexcitement of his Christmas-tree and his visitors, and when the lady hadput on a stiff black cape and a wonderful black silk bonnet and a pairof black wooden clogs over her black cashmere house-boots, the wholeparty went down the road to a little white house--very like the one theyhad left--where an old priest, with a good face, welcomed them with apoliteness so great that it hid his astonishment.

  The lady, with her French waving hands and her shrugging Frenchshoulders and her trembling French speech, told the story. And now thepriest, who knew no English, shrugged HIS shoulders and waved HIS handsand spoke also in French.

  'He thinks,' whispered the Phoenix, 'that her troubles have turned herbrain. What a pity you know no French!'

  'I do know a lot of French,' whispered Robert, indignantly; 'but it'sall about the pencil of the gardener's son and the penknife of thebaker's niece--nothing that anyone ever wants to say.'

  'If _I_ speak,' the bird whispered, 'he'll think HE'S mad, too.'

  'Tell me what to say.'

  'Say "C'est vrai, monsieur. Venez donc voir,"' said the Phoenix; andthen Robert earned the undying respect of everybody by suddenly saying,very loudly and distinctly--

  'Say vray, mossoo; venny dong vwaw.'

  The priest was disappointed when he found that Robert's French began andended with these useful words; but, at any rate, he saw that if the ladywas mad she was not the only one, and he put on a big beavery hat, andgot a candle and matches and a spade, and they all went up the hill tothe wayside shrine of St John of Luz.

  'Now,' said Robert, 'I will go first and show you where it is.'

  So they prised the stone up with a corner of the spade, and Robert didgo first, and they all followed and found the golden treasure exactly asthey had left it. And every one was flushed with the joy of performingsuch a wonderfully kind action.

  Then the lady and the priest clasped hands and wept for joy, as Frenchpeople do, and knelt down and touched the money, and talked very fastand both together, and the lady embraced all the children three timeseach, and called them 'little garden angels,' and then she and thepriest shook each other by both hands again, and talked, and talked, andtalked, faster and more Frenchy than you would have believed possible.And the children were struck dumb with joy and pleasure.

  'Get away NOW,' said the Phoenix softly, breaking in on the radiantdream.

  So the children crept awa
y, and out through the little shrine, and thelady and the priest were so tearfully, talkatively happy that they nevernoticed that the guardian angels had gone.

  The 'garden angels' ran down the hill to the lady's little house, wherethey had left the carpet on the veranda, and they spread it out andsaid 'Home,' and no one saw them disappear, except little Henri, whohad flattened his nose into a white button against the window-glass, andwhen he tried to tell his aunt she thought he had been dreaming. So thatwas all right.

  'It is much the best thing we've done,' said Anthea, when they talkedit over at tea-time. 'In the future we'll only do kind actions with thecarpet.'

  'Ahem!' said the Phoenix.

  'I beg your pardon?' said Anthea.

  'Oh, nothing,' said the bird. 'I was only thinking!'