The Phoenix and the Carpet

by E. Nesbit

  CHAPTER 10. THE HOLE IN THE CARPET

  Hooray! hooray! hooray! Mother comes home to-day; Mother comes home to-day, Hooray! hooray! hooray!'

  Jane sang this simple song directly after breakfast, and the Phoenixshed crystal tears of affectionate sympathy.

  'How beautiful,' it said, 'is filial devotion!'

  'She won't be home till past bedtime, though,' said Robert. 'We mighthave one more carpet-day.'

  He was glad that mother was coming home--quite glad, very glad; but atthe same time that gladness was rudely contradicted by a quite strongfeeling of sorrow, because now they could not go out all day on thecarpet.

  'I do wish we could go and get something nice for mother, only she'dwant to know where we got it,' said Anthea. 'And she'd never, neverbelieve it, the truth. People never do, somehow, if it's at allinteresting.'

  'I'll tell you what,' said Robert. 'Suppose we wished the carpet to takeus somewhere where we could find a purse with money in it--then we couldbuy her something.'

  'Suppose it took us somewhere foreign, and the purse was covered withstrange Eastern devices, embroidered in rich silks, and full of moneythat wasn't money at all here, only foreign curiosities, then wecouldn't spend it, and people would bother about where we got it, and weshouldn't know how on earth to get out of it at all.'

  Cyril moved the table off the carpet as he spoke, and its leg caughtin one of Anthea's darns and ripped away most of it, as well as a largeslit in the carpet.

  'Well, now you HAVE done it,' said Robert.

  But Anthea was a really first-class sister. She did not say a wordtill she had got out the Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool and thedarning-needle and the thimble and the scissors, and by that time shehad been able to get the better of her natural wish to be thoroughlydisagreeable, and was able to say quite kindly--

  'Never mind, Squirrel, I'll soon mend it.'

  Cyril thumped her on the back. He understood exactly how she had felt,and he was not an ungrateful brother.

  'Respecting the purse containing coins,' the Phoenix said, scratchingits invisible ear thoughtfully with its shining claw, 'it might be aswell, perhaps, to state clearly the amount which you wish to find, aswell as the country where you wish to find it, and the nature of thecoins which you prefer. It would be indeed a cold moment when you shouldfind a purse containing but three oboloi.'

  'How much is an oboloi?'

  'An obol is about twopence halfpenny,' the Phoenix replied.

  'Yes,' said Jane, 'and if you find a purse I suppose it is only becausesome one has lost it, and you ought to take it to the policeman.'

  'The situation,' remarked the Phoenix, 'does indeed bristle withdifficulties.'

  'What about a buried treasure,' said Cyril, 'and every one was dead thatit belonged to?'

  'Mother wouldn't believe THAT,' said more than one voice.

  'Suppose,' said Robert--'suppose we asked to be taken where we couldfind a purse and give it back to the person it belonged to, and theywould give us something for finding it?'

  'We aren't allowed to take money from strangers. You know we aren't,Bobs,' said Anthea, making a knot at the end of a needleful of Scotchheather-mixture fingering wool (which is very wrong, and you must neverdo it when you are darning).

  'No, THAT wouldn't do,' said Cyril. 'Let's chuck it and go to the NorthPole, or somewhere really interesting.'

  'No,' said the girls together, 'there must be SOME way.'

  'Wait a sec,' Anthea added. 'I've got an idea coming. Don't speak.'

  There was a silence as she paused with the darning-needle in the air!Suddenly she spoke:

  'I see. Let's tell the carpet to take us somewhere where we can get themoney for mother's present, and--and--and get it some way that she'llbelieve in and not think wrong.'

  'Well, I must say you are learning the way to get the most out of thecarpet,' said Cyril. He spoke more heartily and kindly than usual,because he remembered how Anthea had refrained from snarking him abouttearing the carpet.

  'Yes,' said the Phoenix, 'you certainly are. And you have to rememberthat if you take a thing out it doesn't stay in.'

  No one paid any attention to this remark at the time, but afterwardsevery one thought of it.

  'Do hurry up, Panther,' said Robert; and that was why Anthea did hurryup, and why the big darn in the middle of the carpet was all open andwebby like a fishing net, not tight and close like woven cloth, which iswhat a good, well-behaved darn should be.

  Then every one put on its outdoor things, the Phoenix fluttered on tothe mantelpiece and arranged its golden feathers in the glass, and allwas ready. Every one got on to the carpet.

  'Please go slowly, dear carpet,' Anthea began; we like to see wherewe're going.' And then she added the difficult wish that had beendecided on.

  Next moment the carpet, stiff and raftlike, was sailing over the roofsof Kentish Town.

  'I wish--No, I don't mean that. I mean it's a PITY we aren't higher up,'said Anthea, as the edge of the carpet grazed a chimney-pot.

  'That's right. Be careful,' said the Phoenix, in warning tones. 'If youwish when you're on a wishing carpet, you DO wish, and there's an end ofit.'

  So for a short time no one spoke, and the carpet sailed on in calmmagnificence over St Pancras and King's Cross stations and over thecrowded streets of Clerkenwell.

  'We're going out Greenwich way,' said Cyril, as they crossed the streakof rough, tumbled water that was the Thames. 'We might go and have alook at the Palace.'

  On and on the carpet swept, still keeping much nearer to thechimney-pots than the children found at all comfortable. And then, justover New Cross, a terrible thing happened.

  Jane and Robert were in the middle of the carpet. Part of them wason the carpet, and part of them--the heaviest part--was on the greatcentral darn.

  'It's all very misty,' said Jane; 'it looks partly like out of doorsand partly like in the nursery at home. I feel as if I was going to havemeasles; everything looked awfully rum then, remember.'

  'I feel just exactly the same,' Robert said.

  'It's the hole,' said the Phoenix; 'it's not measles whatever thatpossession may be.'

  And at that both Robert and Jane suddenly, and at once, made a bound totry and get on to the safer part of the carpet, and the darn gave wayand their boots went up, and the heavy heads and bodies of them wentdown through the hole, and they landed in a position something betweensitting and sprawling on the flat leads on the top of a high, grey,gloomy, respectable house whose address was 705, Amersham Road, NewCross.

  The carpet seemed to awaken to new energy as soon as it had got rid oftheir weight, and it rose high in the air. The others lay down flat andpeeped over the edge of the rising carpet.

  'Are you hurt?' cried Cyril, and Robert shouted 'No,' and next momentthe carpet had sped away, and Jane and Robert were hidden from the sightof the others by a stack of smoky chimneys.

  'Oh, how awful!' said Anthea.

  'It might have been worse,' said the Phoenix. 'What would have beenthe sentiments of the survivors if that darn had given way when we werecrossing the river?'

  'Yes, there's that,' said Cyril, recovering himself. 'They'll be allright. They'll howl till some one gets them down, or drop tiles intothe front garden to attract attention of passersby. Bobs has got myone-and-fivepence--lucky you forgot to mend that hole in my pocket,Panther, or he wouldn't have had it. They can tram it home.'

  But Anthea would not be comforted.

  'It's all my fault,' she said. 'I KNEW the proper way to darn, and Ididn't do it. It's all my fault. Let's go home and patch the carpet withyour Etons--something really strong--and send it to fetch them.'

  'All right,' said Cyril; 'but your Sunday jacket is stronger than myEtons. We must just chuck mother's present, that's all. I wish--'

  'Stop!' cried the Phoenix; 'the carpet is dropping to earth.'

  And indeed it was.

  It sank swiftly, yet steadily, and landed on the pavement of
theDeptford Road. It tipped a little as it landed, so that Cyril and Antheanaturally walked off it, and in an instant it had rolled itself up andhidden behind a gate-post. It did this so quickly that not a singleperson in the Deptford Road noticed it. The Phoenix rustled its way intothe breast of Cyril's coat, and almost at the same moment a well-knownvoice remarked--

  'Well, I never! What on earth are you doing here?'

  They were face to face with their pet uncle--their Uncle Reginald.

  'We DID think of going to Greenwich Palace and talking about Nelson,'said Cyril, telling as much of the truth as he thought his uncle couldbelieve.

  'And where are the others?' asked Uncle Reginald.

  'I don't exactly know,' Cyril replied, this time quite truthfully.

  'Well,' said Uncle Reginald, 'I must fly. I've a case in the CountyCourt. That's the worst of being a beastly solicitor. One can't take thechances of life when one gets them. If only I could come with you to thePainted Hall and give you lunch at the "Ship" afterwards! But, alas! itmay not be.'

  The uncle felt in his pocket.

  '_I_ mustn't enjoy myself,' he said, 'but that's no reason why youshouldn't. Here, divide this by four, and the product ought to give yousome desired result. Take care of yourselves. Adieu.'

  And waving a cheery farewell with his neat umbrella, the good andhigh-hatted uncle passed away, leaving Cyril and Anthea to exchangeeloquent glances over the shining golden sovereign that lay in Cyril'shand.

  'Well!' said Anthea.

  'Well!' said Cyril.

  'Well!' said the Phoenix.

  'Good old carpet!' said Cyril, joyously.

  'It WAS clever of it--so adequate and yet so simple,' said the Phoenix,with calm approval.

  'Oh, come on home and let's mend the carpet. I am a beast. I'd forgottenthe others just for a minute,' said the conscience-stricken Anthea.

  They unrolled the carpet quickly and slyly--they did not want to attractpublic attention--and the moment their feet were on the carpet Antheawished to be at home, and instantly they were.

  The kindness of their excellent uncle had made it unnecessary for themto go to such extremes as Cyril's Etons or Anthea's Sunday jacket forthe patching of the carpet.

  Anthea set to work at once to draw the edges of the broken darntogether, and Cyril hastily went out and bought a large piece of themarble-patterned American oil-cloth which careful house-wives use tocover dressers and kitchen tables. It was the strongest thing he couldthink of.

  Then they set to work to line the carpet throughout with the oil-cloth.The nursery felt very odd and empty without the others, and Cyril didnot feel so sure as he had done about their being able to 'tram it'home. So he tried to help Anthea, which was very good of him, but notmuch use to her.

  The Phoenix watched them for a time, but it was plainly growing more andmore restless. It fluffed up its splendid feathers, and stood first onone gilded claw and then on the other, and at last it said--

  'I can bear it no longer. This suspense! My Robert--who set my egg tohatch--in the bosom of whose Norfolk raiment I have nestled so often andso pleasantly! I think, if you'll excuse me--'

  'Yes--DO,' cried Anthea, 'I wish we'd thought of asking you before.'

  Cyril opened the window. The Phoenix flapped its sunbright wings andvanished.

  'So THAT'S all right,' said Cyril, taking up his needle and instantlypricking his hand in a new place.

  Of course I know that what you have really wanted to know about all thistime is not what Anthea and Cyril did, but what happened to Jane andRobert after they fell through the carpet on to the leads of the housewhich was called number 705, Amersham Road.

  But I had to tell you the other first. That is one of the most annoyingthings about stories, you cannot tell all the different parts of them atthe same time.

  Robert's first remark when he found himself seated on the damp, cold,sooty leads was--

  'Here's a go!'

  Jane's first act was tears.

  'Dry up, Pussy; don't be a little duffer,' said her brother, kindly,'it'll be all right.'

  And then he looked about, just as Cyril had known he would, forsomething to throw down, so as to attract the attention of the wayfarersfar below in the street. He could not find anything. Curiously enough,there were no stones on the leads, not even a loose tile. The roof wasof slate, and every single slate knew its place and kept it. But, as sooften happens, in looking for one thing he found another. There was atrap-door leading down into the house.

  And that trap-door was not fastened.

  'Stop snivelling and come here, Jane,' he cried, encouragingly. 'Lend ahand to heave this up. If we can get into the house, we might sneak downwithout meeting any one, with luck. Come on.'

  They heaved up the door till it stood straight up, and, as they bent tolook into the hole below, the door fell back with a hollow clang on theleads behind, and with its noise was mingled a blood-curdling screamfrom underneath.

  'Discovered!' hissed Robert. 'Oh, my cats alive!'

  They were indeed discovered.

  They found themselves looking down into an attic, which was alsoa lumber-room. It had boxes and broken chairs, old fenders andpicture-frames, and rag-bags hanging from nails.

  In the middle of the floor was a box, open, half full of clothes. Otherclothes lay on the floor in neat piles. In the middle of the piles ofclothes sat a lady, very fat indeed, with her feet sticking out straightin front of her. And it was she who had screamed, and who, in fact, wasstill screaming.

  'Don't!' cried Jane, 'please don't! We won't hurt you.'

  'Where are the rest of your gang?' asked the lady, stopping short in themiddle of a scream.

  'The others have gone on, on the wishing carpet,' said Jane truthfully.

  'The wishing carpet?' said the lady.

  'Yes,' said Jane, before Robert could say 'You shut up!' 'You must haveread about it. The Phoenix is with them.'

  Then the lady got up, and picking her way carefully between the piles ofclothes she got to the door and through it. She shut it behind her, andthe two children could hear her calling 'Septimus! Septimus!' in a loudyet frightened way.

  'Now,' said Robert quickly; 'I'll drop first.'

  He hung by his hands and dropped through the trap-door.

  'Now you. Hang by your hands. I'll catch you. Oh, there's no time forjaw. Drop, I say.'

  Jane dropped.

  Robert tried to catch her, and even before they had finished thebreathless roll among the piles of clothes, which was what his catchingended in, he whispered--

  'We'll hide--behind those fenders and things; they'll think we've gonealong the roofs. Then, when all is calm, we'll creep down the stairs andtake our chance.'

  They hastily hid. A corner of an iron bedstead stuck into Robert's side,and Jane had only standing room for one foot--but they bore it--and whenthe lady came back, not with Septimus, but with another lady, they heldtheir breath and their hearts beat thickly.

  'Gone!' said the first lady; 'poor little things--quite mad, mydear--and at large! We must lock this room and send for the police.'

  'Let me look out,' said the second lady, who was, if possible, olderand thinner and primmer than the first. So the two ladies dragged a boxunder the trap-door and put another box on the top of it, and then theyboth climbed up very carefully and put their two trim, tidy heads out ofthe trap-door to look for the 'mad children'.

  'Now,' whispered Robert, getting the bedstead leg out of his side.

  They managed to creep out from their hiding-place and out through thedoor before the two ladies had done looking out of the trap-door on tothe empty leads.

  Robert and Jane tiptoed down the stairs--one flight, two flights. Thenthey looked over the banisters. Horror! a servant was coming up with aloaded scuttle.

  The children with one consent crept swiftly through the first open door.

  The room was a study, calm and gentlemanly, with rows of books, awriting table, and a pair of embroidered slippers warmi
ng themselves inthe fender. The children hid behind the window-curtains. As they passedthe table they saw on it a missionary-box with its bottom label tornoff, open and empty.

  'Oh, how awful!' whispered Jane. 'We shall never get away alive.'

  'Hush!' said Robert, not a moment too soon, for there were steps on thestairs, and next instant the two ladies came into the room. They did notsee the children, but they saw the empty missionary box.

  'I knew it,' said one. 'Selina, it WAS a gang. I was certain of it fromthe first. The children were not mad. They were sent to distract ourattention while their confederates robbed the house.'

  'I am afraid you are right,' said Selina; 'and WHERE ARE THEY NOW?'

  'Downstairs, no doubt, collecting the silver milk-jug and sugar-basinand the punch-ladle that was Uncle Joe's, and Aunt Jerusha's teaspoons.I shall go down.'

  'Oh, don't be so rash and heroic,' said Selina. 'Amelia, we must callthe police from the window. Lock the door. I WILL--I will--'

  The words ended in a yell as Selina, rushing to the window, came face toface with the hidden children.

  'Oh, don't!' said Jane; 'how can you be so unkind? We AREN'T burglars,and we haven't any gang, and we didn't open your missionary-box.We opened our own once, but we didn't have to use the money, so ourconsciences made us put it back and--DON'T! Oh, I wish you wouldn't--'

  Miss Selina had seized Jane and Miss Amelia captured Robert. Thechildren found themselves held fast by strong, slim hands, pink at thewrists and white at the knuckles.

  'We've got YOU, at any rate,' said Miss Amelia. 'Selina, your captiveis smaller than mine. You open the window at once and call "Murder!" asloud as you can.

  Selina obeyed; but when she had opened the window, instead of calling'Murder!' she called 'Septimus!' because at that very moment she saw hernephew coming in at the gate.

  In another minute he had let himself in with his latch-key and hadmounted the stairs. As he came into the room Jane and Robert eachuttered a shriek of joy so loud and so sudden that the ladies leapedwith surprise, and nearly let them go.

  'It's our own clergyman,' cried Jane.

  'Don't you remember us?' asked Robert. 'You married our burglar forus--don't you remember?'

  'I KNEW it was a gang,' said Amelia. 'Septimus, these abandoned childrenare members of a desperate burgling gang who are robbing the house. Theyhave already forced the missionary-box and purloined its contents.'

  The Reverend Septimus passed his hand wearily over his brow.

  'I feel a little faint,' he said, 'running upstairs so quickly.'

  'We never touched the beastly box,' said Robert.

  'Then your confederates did,' said Miss Selina.

  'No, no,' said the curate, hastily. '_I_ opened the box myself.This morning I found I had not enough small change for the Mothers'Independent Unity Measles and Croup Insurance payments. I suppose thisis NOT a dream, is it?'

  'Dream? No, indeed. Search the house. I insist upon it.'

  The curate, still pale and trembling, searched the house, which, ofcourse, was blamelessly free of burglars.

  When he came back he sank wearily into his chair.

  'Aren't you going to let us go?' asked Robert, with furious indignation,for there is something in being held by a strong lady that sets theblood of a boy boiling in his veins with anger and despair. 'We've neverdone anything to you. It's all the carpet. It dropped us on the leads.WE couldn't help it. You know how it carried you over to the island, andyou had to marry the burglar to the cook.'

  'Oh, my head!' said the curate.

  'Never mind your head just now,' said Robert; 'try to be honest andhonourable, and do your duty in that state of life!'

  'This is a judgement on me for something, I suppose,' said the ReverendSeptimus, wearily, 'but I really cannot at the moment remember what.'

  'Send for the police,' said Miss Selina.

  'Send for a doctor,' said the curate.

  'Do you think they ARE mad, then,' said Miss Amelia.

  'I think I am,' said the curate.

  Jane had been crying ever since her capture. Now she said-- 'You aren'tnow, but perhaps you will be, if--And it would serve you jolly wellright, too.'

  'Aunt Selina,' said the curate, 'and Aunt Amelia, believe me, this isonly an insane dream. You will realize it soon. It has happened to mebefore. But do not let us be unjust, even in a dream. Do not hold thechildren; they have done no harm. As I said before, it was I who openedthe box.'

  The strong, bony hands unwillingly loosened their grasp. Robert shookhimself and stood in sulky resentment. But Jane ran to the curate andembraced him so suddenly that he had not time to defend himself.

  'You're a dear,' she said. 'It IS like a dream just at first, but youget used to it. Now DO let us go. There's a good, kind, honourableclergyman.'

  'I don't know,' said the Reverend Septimus; 'it's a difficult problem.It is such a very unusual dream. Perhaps it's only a sort of otherlife--quite real enough for you to be mad in. And if you're mad, theremight be a dream-asylum where you'd be kindly treated, and in timerestored, cured, to your sorrowing relatives. It is very hard to seeyour duty plainly, even in ordinary life, and these dream-circumstancesare so complicated--'

  'If it's a dream,' said Robert, 'you will wake up directly, and thenyou'd be sorry if you'd sent us into a dream-asylum, because you mightnever get into the same dream again and let us out, and so we might staythere for ever, and then what about our sorrowing relatives who aren'tin the dreams at all?'

  But all the curate could now say was, 'Oh, my head!'

  And Jane and Robert felt quite ill with helplessness and hopelessness. Areally conscientious curate is a very difficult thing to manage.

  And then, just as the hopelessness and the helplessness were getting tobe almost more than they could bear, the two children suddenly felt thatextraordinary shrinking feeling that you always have when you are justgoing to vanish. And the next moment they had vanished, and the ReverendSeptimus was left alone with his aunts.

  'I knew it was a dream,' he cried, wildly. 'I've had something likeit before. Did you dream it too, Aunt Selina, and you, Aunt Amelia? Idreamed that you did, you know.'

  Aunt Selina looked at him and then at Aunt Amelia. Then she saidboldly--

  'What do you mean? WE haven't been dreaming anything. You must havedropped off in your chair.'

  The curate heaved a sigh of relief.

  'Oh, if it's only _I_,' he said; 'if we'd all dreamed it I could neverhave believed it, never!'

  Afterwards Aunt Selina said to the other aunt--

  'Yes, I know it was an untruth, and I shall doubtless be punished for itin due course. But I could see the poor dear fellow's brain giving waybefore my very eyes. He couldn't have stood the strain of three dreams.It WAS odd, wasn't it? All three of us dreaming the same thing at thesame moment. We must never tell dear Seppy. But I shall send an accountof it to the Psychical Society, with stars instead of names, you know.'

  And she did. And you can read all about it in one of the society's fatBlue-books.

  Of course, you understand what had happened? The intelligent Phoenix hadsimply gone straight off to the Psammead, and had wished Robert and Janeat home. And, of course, they were at home at once. Cyril and Anthea hadnot half finished mending the carpet.

  When the joyful emotions of reunion had calmed down a little, theyall went out and spent what was left of Uncle Reginald's sovereign inpresents for mother. They bought her a pink silk handkerchief, a pair ofblue and white vases, a bottle of scent, a packet of Christmas candles,and a cake of soap shaped and coloured like a tomato, and one that wasso like an orange that almost any one you had given it to would havetried to peel it--if they liked oranges, of course. Also they bought acake with icing on, and the rest of the money they spent on flowers toput in the vases.

  When they had arranged all the things on a table, with the candles stuckup on a plate ready to light the moment mother's cab was heard, theywashed themselves thoroughly and put on
tidier clothes.

  Then Robert said, 'Good old Psammead,' and the others said so too.

  'But, really, it's just as much good old Phoenix,' said Robert. 'Supposeit hadn't thought of getting the wish!'

  'Ah!' said the Phoenix, 'it is perhaps fortunate for you that I am sucha competent bird.'

  'There's mother's cab,' cried Anthea, and the Phoenix hid and theylighted the candles, and next moment mother was home again.

  She liked her presents very much, and found their story of UncleReginald and the sovereign easy and even pleasant to believe.

  'Good old carpet,' were Cyril's last sleepy words.

  'What there is of it,' said the Phoenix, from the cornice-pole.