The Phoenix and the Carpet

by E. Nesbit

  CHAPTER 9. THE BURGLAR'S BRIDE

  The morning after the adventure of the Persian cats, the musk-rats, thecommon cow, and the uncommon burglar, all the children slept till it wasten o'clock; and then it was only Cyril who woke; but he attended tothe others, so that by half past ten every one was ready to help to getbreakfast. It was shivery cold, and there was but little in the housethat was really worth eating.

  Robert had arranged a thoughtful little surprise for the absentservants. He had made a neat and delightful booby trap over the kitchendoor, and as soon as they heard the front door click open and knew theservants had come back, all four children hid in the cupboard underthe stairs and listened with delight to the entrance--the tumble, thesplash, the scuffle, and the remarks of the servants. They heard thecook say it was a judgement on them for leaving the place to itself;she seemed to think that a booby trap was a kind of plant that was quitelikely to grow, all by itself, in a dwelling that was left shut up. Butthe housemaid, more acute, judged that someone must have been in thehouse--a view confirmed by the sight of the breakfast things on thenursery table.

  The cupboard under the stairs was very tight and paraffiny, however, anda silent struggle for a place on top ended in the door bursting openand discharging Jane, who rolled like a football to the feet of theservants.

  'Now,' said Cyril, firmly, when the cook's hysterics had become quieter,and the housemaid had time to say what she thought of them, 'don't youbegin jawing us. We aren't going to stand it. We know too much. You'llplease make an extra special treacle roley for dinner, and we'll have atinned tongue.'

  'I daresay,' said the housemaid, indignant, still in her outdoor thingsand with her hat very much on one side. 'Don't you come a-threateningme, Master Cyril, because I won't stand it, so I tell you. You tellyour ma about us being out? Much I care! She'll be sorry for me when shehears about my dear great-aunt by marriage as brought me up from a childand was a mother to me. She sent for me, she did, she wasn't expectedto last the night, from the spasms going to her legs--and cook was thatkind and careful she couldn't let me go alone, so--'

  'Don't,' said Anthea, in real distress. 'You know where liars go to,Eliza--at least if you don't--'

  'Liars indeed!' said Eliza, 'I won't demean myself talking to you.'

  'How's Mrs Wigson?' said Robert, 'and DID you keep it up last night?'

  The mouth of the housemaid fell open.

  'Did you doss with Maria or Emily?' asked Cyril.

  'How did Mrs Prosser enjoy herself?' asked Jane.

  'Forbear,' said Cyril, 'they've had enough. Whether we tell or notdepends on your later life,' he went on, addressing the servants. 'Ifyou are decent to us we'll be decent to you. You'd better make thattreacle roley--and if I were you, Eliza, I'd do a little housework andcleaning, just for a change.'

  The servants gave in once and for all.

  'There's nothing like firmness,' Cyril went on, when the breakfastthings were cleared away and the children were alone in the nursery.'People are always talking of difficulties with servants. It's quitesimple, when you know the way. We can do what we like now and they won'tpeach. I think we've broken THEIR proud spirit. Let's go somewhere bycarpet.'

  'I wouldn't if I were you,' said the Phoenix, yawning, as it swoopeddown from its roost on the curtain pole. 'I've given you one or twohints, but now concealment is at an end, and I see I must speak out.'

  It perched on the back of a chair and swayed to and fro, like a parroton a swing.

  'What's the matter now?' said Anthea. She was not quite so gentle asusual, because she was still weary from the excitement of last night'scats. 'I'm tired of things happening. I shan't go anywhere on thecarpet. I'm going to darn my stockings.'

  'Darn!' said the Phoenix, 'darn! From those young lips these strangeexpressions--'

  'Mend, then,' said Anthea, 'with a needle and wool.'

  The Phoenix opened and shut its wings thoughtfully.

  'Your stockings,' it said, 'are much less important than they now appearto you. But the carpet--look at the bare worn patches, look at the greatrent at yonder corner. The carpet has been your faithful friend--yourwilling servant. How have you requited its devoted service?'

  'Dear Phoenix,' Anthea urged, 'don't talk in that horrid lecturing tone.You make me feel as if I'd done something wrong. And really it is awishing carpet, and we haven't done anything else to it--only wishes.'

  'Only wishes,' repeated the Phoenix, ruffling its neck feathers angrily,'and what sort of wishes? Wishing people to be in a good temper, forinstance. What carpet did you ever hear of that had such a wish askedof it? But this noble fabric, on which you trample so recklessly' (everyone removed its boots from the carpet and stood on the linoleum), 'thiscarpet never flinched. It did what you asked, but the wear and tear musthave been awful. And then last night--I don't blame you about the catsand the rats, for those were its own choice; but what carpet could standa heavy cow hanging on to it at one corner?'

  'I should think the cats and rats were worse,' said Robert, 'look at alltheir claws.'

  'Yes,' said the bird, 'eleven thousand nine hundred and forty of them--Idaresay you noticed? I should be surprised if these had not left theirmark.'

  'Good gracious,' said Jane, sitting down suddenly on the floor, andpatting the edge of the carpet softly; 'do you mean it's WEARING OUT?'

  'Its life with you has not been a luxurious one,' said the Phoenix.

  'French mud twice. Sand of sunny shores twice. Soaking in southern seasonce. India once. Goodness knows where in Persia once. Musk-rat-landonce. And once, wherever the cow came from. Hold your carpet up to thelight, and with cautious tenderness, if YOU please.'

  With cautious tenderness the boys held the carpet up to the light; thegirls looked, and a shiver of regret ran through them as they saw howthose eleven thoousand nine hundred and forty claws had run through thecarpet. It was full of little holes: there were some large ones, andmore than one thin place. At one corner a strip of it was torn, and hungforlornly.

  'We must mend it,' said Anthea; 'never mind about my stockings. I cansew them up in lumps with sewing cotton if there's no time to do themproperly. I know it's awful and no girl would who respected herself,and all that; but the poor dear carpet's more important than my sillystockings. Let's go out now this very minute.'

  So out they all went, and bought wool to mend the carpet; but thereis no shop in Camden Town where you can buy wishing-wool, no, nor inKentish Town either. However, ordinary Scotch heather-mixture fingeringseemed good enough, and this they bought, and all that day Jane andAnthea darned and darned and darned. The boys went out for a walk inthe afternoon, and the gentle Phoenix paced up and down the table--forexercise, as it said--and talked to the industrious girls about theircarpet.

  'It is not an ordinary, ignorant, innocent carpet from Kidderminster,'it said, 'it is a carpet with a past--a Persian past. Do you know thatin happier years, when that carpet was the property of caliphs, viziers,kings, and sultans, it never lay on a floor?'

  'I thought the floor was the proper home of a carpet,' Jane interrupted.

  'Not of a MAGIC carpet,' said the Phoenix; 'why, if it had been allowedto lie about on floors there wouldn't be much of it left now. No,indeed! It has lived in chests of cedarwood, inlaid with pearl andivory, wrapped in priceless tissues of cloth of gold, embroidered withgems of fabulous value. It has reposed in the sandal-wood caskets ofprincesses, and in the rose-attar-scented treasure-houses of kings.Never, never, had any one degraded it by walking on it--except in theway of business, when wishes were required, and then they always tooktheir shoes off. And YOU--'

  'Oh, DON'T!' said Jane, very near tears. 'You know you'd never have beenhatched at all if it hadn't been for mother wanting a carpet for us towalk on.'

  'You needn't have walked so much or so hard!' said the bird, 'butcome, dry that crystal tear, and I will relate to you the story of thePrincess Zulieka, the Prince of Asia, and the magic carpet.'

  'Relate away,' said Anthea--'
I mean, please do.'

  'The Princess Zulieka, fairest of royal ladies,' began the bird, 'had inher cradle been the subject of several enchantments. Her grandmother hadbeen in her day--'

  But what in her day Zulieka's grandmother had been was destined never tobe revealed, for Cyril and Robert suddenly burst into the room, and oneach brow were the traces of deep emotion. On Cyril's pale brow stoodbeads of agitation and perspiration, and on the scarlet brow of Robertwas a large black smear.

  'What ails ye both?' asked the Phoenix, and it added tartly thatstory-telling was quite impossible if people would come interruptinglike that.

  'Oh, do shut up, for any sake!' said Cyril, sinking into a chair.

  Robert smoothed the ruffled golden feathers, adding kindly--

  'Squirrel doesn't mean to be a beast. It's only that the MOST AWFULthing has happened, and stories don't seem to matter so much. Don't becross. You won't be when you've heard what's happened.'

  'Well, what HAS happened?' said the bird, still rather crossly; andAnthea and Jane paused with long needles poised in air, and longneedlefuls of Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool drooping from them.

  'The most awful thing you can possibly think of,' said Cyril. 'That nicechap--our own burglar--the police have got him, on suspicion of stolencats. That's what his brother's missis told me.'

  'Oh, begin at the beginning!' cried Anthea impatiently.

  'Well, then, we went out, and down by where the undertaker's is, withthe china flowers in the window--you know. There was a crowd, and ofcourse we went to have a squint. And it was two bobbies and our burglarbetween them, and he was being dragged along; and he said, "I tell youthem cats was GIVE me. I got 'em in exchange for me milking a cow in abasement parlour up Camden Town way."

  'And the people laughed. Beasts! And then one of the policemen saidperhaps he could give the name and address of the cow, and he said, no,he couldn't; but he could take them there if they'd only leave go of hiscoat collar, and give him a chance to get his breath. And the policemansaid he could tell all that to the magistrate in the morning. He didn'tsee us, and so we came away.'

  'Oh, Cyril, how COULD you?' said Anthea.

  'Don't be a pudding-head,' Cyril advised. 'A fat lot of good it wouldhave done if we'd let him see us. No one would have believed a word wesaid. They'd have thought we were kidding. We did better than let himsee us. We asked a boy where he lived and he told us, and we went there,and it's a little greengrocer's shop, and we bought some Brazil nuts.Here they are.' The girls waved away the Brazil nuts with loathing andcontempt.

  'Well, we had to buy SOMETHING, and while we were making up our mindswhat to buy we heard his brother's missis talking. She said when he camehome with all them miaoulers she thought there was more in it than metthe eye. But he WOULD go out this morning with the two likeliest ofthem, one under each arm. She said he sent her out to buy blue ribbon toput round their beastly necks, and she said if he got three months' hardit was her dying word that he'd got the blue ribbon to thank for it;that, and his own silly thieving ways, taking cats that anybody wouldknow he couldn't have come by in the way of business, instead of thingsthat wouldn't have been missed, which Lord knows there are plenty such,and--'

  'Oh, STOP!' cried Jane. And indeed it was time, for Cyril seemed like aclock that had been wound up, and could not help going on. 'Where is henow?'

  'At the police-station,' said Robert, for Cyril was out of breath. 'Theboy told us they'd put him in the cells, and would bring him upbefore the Beak in the morning. I thought it was a jolly lark lastnight--getting him to take the cats--but now--'

  'The end of a lark,' said the Phoenix, 'is the Beak.'

  'Let's go to him,' cried both the girls jumping up. 'Let's go and tellthe truth. They MUST believe us.'

  'They CAN'T,' said Cyril. 'Just think! If any one came to you with sucha tale, you couldn't believe it, however much you tried. We should onlymix things up worse for him.'

  'There must be something we could do,' said Jane, sniffing verymuch--'my own dear pet burglar! I can't bear it. And he was so nice,the way he talked about his father, and how he was going to be so extrahonest. Dear Phoenix, you MUST be able to help us. You're so good andkind and pretty and clever. Do, do tell us what to do.'

  The Phoenix rubbed its beak thoughtfully with its claw.

  'You might rescue him,' it said, 'and conceal him here, till thelaw-supporters had forgotten about him.'

  'That would be ages and ages,' said Cyril, 'and we couldn't conceal himhere. Father might come home at any moment, and if he found the burglarhere HE wouldn't believe the true truth any more than the police would.That's the worst of the truth. Nobody ever believes it. Couldn't we takehim somewhere else?'

  Jane clapped her hands.

  'The sunny southern shore!' she cried, 'where the cook is being queen.He and she would be company for each other!'

  And really the idea did not seem bad, if only he would consent to go.

  So, all talking at once, the children arranged to wait till evening, andthen to seek the dear burglar in his lonely cell.

  Meantime Jane and Anthea darned away as hard as they could, to make thecarpet as strong as possible. For all felt how terrible it would be ifthe precious burglar, while being carried to the sunny southern shore,were to tumble through a hole in the carpet, and be lost for ever in thesunny southern sea.

  The servants were tired after Mrs Wigson's party, so every one went tobed early, and when the Phoenix reported that both servants were snoringin a heartfelt and candid manner, the children got up--they had neverundressed; just putting their nightgowns on over their things had beenenough to deceive Eliza when she came to turn out the gas. So they wereready for anything, and they stood on the carpet and said--

  'I wish we were in our burglar's lonely cell.' and instantly they were.

  I think every one had expected the cell to be the 'deepest dungeon belowthe castle moat'. I am sure no one had doubted that the burglar, chainedby heavy fetters to a ring in the damp stone wall, would be tossinguneasily on a bed of straw, with a pitcher of water and a moulderingcrust, untasted, beside him. Robert, remembering the underground passageand the treasure, had brought a candle and matches, but these were notneeded.

  The cell was a little white-washed room about twelve feet long andsix feet wide. On one side of it was a sort of shelf sloping a littletowards the wall. On this were two rugs, striped blue and yellow, and awater-proof pillow. Rolled in the rugs, and with his head on the pillow,lay the burglar, fast asleep. (He had had his tea, though this thechildren did not know--it had come from the coffee-shop round thecorner, in very thick crockery.) The scene was plainly revealed by thelight of a gas-lamp in the passage outside, which shone into the cellthrough a pane of thick glass over the door.

  'I shall gag him,' said Cyril, 'and Robert will hold him down. Antheaand Jane and the Phoenix can whisper soft nothings to him while hegradually awakes.'

  This plan did not have the success it deserved, because the burglar,curiously enough, was much stronger, even in his sleep, than Robert andCyril, and at the first touch of their hands he leapt up and shouted outsomething very loud indeed.

  Instantly steps were heard outside. Anthea threw her arms round theburglar and whispered--

  'It's us--the ones that gave you the cats. We've come to save you, onlydon't let on we're here. Can't we hide somewhere?'

  Heavy boots sounded on the flagged passage outside, and a firm voiceshouted--

  'Here--you--stop that row, will you?'

  'All right, governor,' replied the burglar, still with Anthea's armsround him; 'I was only a-talking in my sleep. No offence.'

  It was an awful moment. Would the boots and the voice come in. Yes! No!The voice said--

  'Well, stow it, will you?'

  And the boots went heavily away, along the passage and up some soundingstone stairs.

  'Now then,' whispered Anthea.

  'How the blue Moses did you get in?' asked the burglar, in a hoarsewhisper of
amazement.

  'On the carpet,' said Jane, truly.

  'Stow that,' said the burglar. 'One on you I could 'a' swallowed, butfour--AND a yellow fowl.'

  'Look here,' said Cyril, sternly, 'you wouldn't have believed any one ifthey'd told you beforehand about your finding a cow and all those catsin our nursery.'

  'That I wouldn't,' said the burglar, with whispered fervour, 'so help meBob, I wouldn't.'

  'Well, then,' Cyril went on, ignoring this appeal to his brother, 'justtry to believe what we tell you and act accordingly. It can't do you anyHARM, you know,' he went on in hoarse whispered earnestness. 'You can'tbe very much worse off than you are now, you know. But if you'll justtrust to us we'll get you out of this right enough. No one saw us comein. The question is, where would you like to go?'

  'I'd like to go to Boolong,' was the instant reply of the burglar. 'I'vealways wanted to go on that there trip, but I've never 'ad the ready atthe right time of the year.'

  'Boolong is a town like London,' said Cyril, well meaning, butinaccurate, 'how could you get a living there?'

  The burglar scratched his head in deep doubt.

  'It's 'ard to get a 'onest living anywheres nowadays,' he said, and hisvoice was sad.

  'Yes, isn't it?' said Jane, sympathetically; 'but how about a sunnysouthern shore, where there's nothing to do at all unless you want to.'

  'That's my billet, miss,' replied the burglar. 'I never did care aboutwork--not like some people, always fussing about.'

  'Did you never like any sort of work?' asked Anthea, severely.

  'Lor', lumme, yes,' he answered, 'gardening was my 'obby, so it was. Butfather died afore 'e could bind me to a nurseryman, an'--'

  'We'll take you to the sunny southern shore,' said Jane; 'you've no ideawhat the flowers are like.'

  'Our old cook's there,' said Anthea. 'She's queen--'

  'Oh, chuck it,' the burglar whispered, clutching at his head with bothhands. 'I knowed the first minute I see them cats and that cow as it wasa judgement on me. I don't know now whether I'm a-standing on my hat ormy boots, so help me I don't. If you CAN get me out, get me, and if youcan't, get along with you for goodness' sake, and give me a chanstto think about what'll be most likely to go down with the Beak in themorning.'

  'Come on to the carpet, then,' said Anthea, gently shoving. The othersquietly pulled, and the moment the feet of the burglar were planted onthe carpet Anthea wished:

  'I wish we were all on the sunny southern shore where cook is.'

  And instantly they were. There were the rainbow sands, the tropicglories of leaf and flower, and there, of course, was the cook, crownedwith white flowers, and with all the wrinkles of crossness and tirednessand hard work wiped out of her face.

  'Why, cook, you're quite pretty!' Anthea said, as soon as she had gother breath after the tumble-rush-whirl of the carpet. The burglar stoodrubbing his eyes in the brilliant tropic sunlight, and gazing wildlyround him on the vivid hues of the tropic land.

  'Penny plain and tuppence coloured!' he exclaimed pensively, 'and wellworth any tuppence, however hard-earned.'

  The cook was seated on a grassy mound with her court of copper-colouredsavages around her. The burglar pointed a grimy finger at these.

  'Are they tame?' he asked anxiously. 'Do they bite or scratch, or doanything to yer with poisoned arrows or oyster shells or that?'

  'Don't you be so timid,' said the cook. 'Look'e 'ere, this 'ere's onlya dream what you've come into, an' as it's only a dream there's nononsense about what a young lady like me ought to say or not, so I'llsay you're the best-looking fellow I've seen this many a day. And thedream goes on and on, seemingly, as long as you behaves. The things whatyou has to eat and drink tastes just as good as real ones, and--'

  'Look 'ere,' said the burglar, 'I've come 'ere straight outer the pleecestation. These 'ere kids'll tell you it ain't no blame er mine.'

  'Well, you WERE a burglar, you know,' said the truthful Anthea gently.

  'Only because I was druv to it by dishonest blokes, as well you knows,miss,' rejoined the criminal. 'Blowed if this ain't the 'ottest Januaryas I've known for years.'

  'Wouldn't you like a bath?' asked the queen, 'and some white clotheslike me?'

  'I should only look a juggins in 'em, miss, thanking you all the same,'was the reply; 'but a bath I wouldn't resist, and my shirt was onlyclean on week before last.'

  Cyril and Robert led him to a rocky pool, where he bathed luxuriously.Then, in shirt and trousers he sat on the sand and spoke.

  'That cook, or queen, or whatever you call her--her with the white bokayon her 'ed--she's my sort. Wonder if she'd keep company!'

  'I should ask her.'

  'I was always a quick hitter,' the man went on; 'it's a word and a blowwith me. I will.'

  In shirt and trousers, and crowned with a scented flowery wreath whichCyril hastily wove as they returned to the court of the queen, theburglar stood before the cook and spoke.

  'Look 'ere, miss,' he said. 'You an' me being' all forlorn-like, both onus, in this 'ere dream, or whatever you calls it, I'd like to tell youstraight as I likes yer looks.'

  The cook smiled and looked down bashfully.

  'I'm a single man--what you might call a batcheldore. I'm mild in my'abits, which these kids'll tell you the same, and I'd like to 'ave thepleasure of walkin' out with you next Sunday.'

  'Lor!' said the queen cook, ''ow sudden you are, mister.'

  'Walking out means you're going to be married,' said Anthea. 'Why notget married and have done with it? _I_ would.'

  'I don't mind if I do,' said the burglar. But the cook said--

  'No, miss. Not me, not even in a dream. I don't say anythink ag'in theyoung chap's looks, but I always swore I'd be married in church, if atall--and, anyway, I don't believe these here savages would know howto keep a registering office, even if I was to show them. No, mister,thanking you kindly, if you can't bring a clergyman into the dream I'lllive and die like what I am.'

  'Will you marry her if we get a clergyman?' asked the match-makingAnthea.

  'I'm agreeable, miss, I'm sure,' said he, pulling his wreath straight.''Ow this 'ere bokay do tiddle a chap's ears to be sure!'

  So, very hurriedly, the carpet was spread out, and instructed to fetcha clergyman. The instructions were written on the inside of Cyril's capwith a piece of billiard chalk Robert had got from the marker at thehotel at Lyndhurst. The carpet disappeared, and more quickly than youwould have thought possible it came back, bearing on its bosom theReverend Septimus Blenkinsop.

  The Reverend Septimus was rather a nice young man, but very much mazedand muddled, because when he saw a strange carpet laid out at his feet,in his own study, he naturally walked on it to examine it more closely.And he happened to stand on one of the thin places that Jane and Antheahad darned, so that he was half on wishing carpet and half on plainScotch heather-mixture fingering, which has no magic properties at all.

  The effect of this was that he was only half there--so that the childrencould just see through him, as though he had been a ghost. And as forhim, he saw the sunny southern shore, the cook and the burglar and thechildren quite plainly; but through them all he saw, quite plainly also,his study at home, with the books and the pictures and the marble clockthat had been presented to him when he left his last situation.

  He seemed to himself to be in a sort of insane fit, so that it did notmatter what he did--and he married the burglar to the cook. The cooksaid that she would rather have had a solider kind of a clergyman, onethat you couldn't see through so plain, but perhaps this was real enoughfor a dream.

  And of course the clergyman, though misty, was really real, and ableto marry people, and he did. When the ceremony was over the clergymanwandered about the island collecting botanical specimens, for he was agreat botanist, and the ruling passion was strong even in an insane fit.

  There was a splendid wedding feast. Can you fancy Jane and Anthea,and Robert and Cyril, dancing merrily in a ring, hand-in-hand withco
pper-coloured savages, round the happy couple, the queen cook and theburglar consort? There were more flowers gathered and thrown than youhave ever even dreamed of, and before the children took carpet for homethe now married-and-settled burglar made a speech.

  'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'and savages of both kinds, only I knowyou can't understand what I'm a saying of, but we'll let that pass.If this is a dream, I'm on. If it ain't, I'm onner than ever. If it'sbetwixt and between--well, I'm honest, and I can't say more. I don'twant no more 'igh London society--I've got some one to put my arm aroundof; and I've got the whole lot of this 'ere island for my allotment, andif I don't grow some broccoli as'll open the judge's eye at the cottageflower shows, well, strike me pink! All I ask is, as these young gentsand ladies'll bring some parsley seed into the dream, and a penn'orth ofradish seed, and threepenn'orth of onion, and I wouldn't mind goin' tofourpence or fippence for mixed kale, only I ain't got a brown, so Idon't deceive you. And there's one thing more, you might take away theparson. I don't like things what I can see 'alf through, so here's how!'He drained a coconut-shell of palm wine.

  It was now past midnight--though it was tea-time on the island.

  With all good wishes the children took their leave. They also collectedthe clergyman and took him back to his study and his presentation clock.

  The Phoenix kindly carried the seeds next day to the burglar and hisbride, and returned with the most satisfactory news of the happy pair.

  'He's made a wooden spade and started on his allotment,' it said, 'andshe is weaving him a shirt and trousers of the most radiant whiteness.'

  The police never knew how the burglar got away. In Kentish Town PoliceStation his escape is still spoken of with bated breath as the Persianmystery.

  As for the Reverend Septimus Blenkinsop, he felt that he had had avery insane fit indeed, and he was sure it was due to over-study. So heplanned a little dissipation, and took his two maiden aunts to Paris,where they enjoyed a dazzling round of museums and picture galleries,and came back feeling that they had indeed seen life. He never told hisaunts or any one else about the marriage on the island--because noone likes it to be generally known if he has had insane fits, howeverinteresting and unusual.