Kipps Part 19

"How d'yer know the 'ouse----?"

"They told me."

"Well," said Old Kipps, and nodded his head portentously towards his nephew, with the corners of his mouth pulled down in a portentous, discouraging way. "Well, you _are_ a young Gaby."

"I didn't _think_ it of you, Artie!" said Mrs. Kipps.

"Wadjer mean?" asked Kipps faintly, looking from one to the other with a withered face.

Old Kipps closed the shop door. "They been 'avin' a lark with you," said Old Kipps in a mournful undertone. "That's what I mean, my boy. They jest been seein' what a Gaby like you 'ud do."

"I dessay that young Quodling was in it," said Mrs. Kipps. "'E's jest that sort."

(For Quodling of the green baize bag had grown up to be a fearful dog, the terror of New Romney.)

"It's somebody after your place very likely," said Old Kipps.

Kipps looked from one sceptical, reproving face to the other, and round him at the familiar shabby, little room, with his familiar cheap portmanteau on the mended chair, and that banjo amidst the supper things like some irrevocable deed. Could he be rich indeed? Could it be that these things had really happened? Or had some insane fancy whirled him hither?

Still--perhaps a hundred pounds----

"But," he said. "It's all right, reely, Uncle. You don't think----? I 'ad a letter."

"Got up," said Old Kipps.

"But I answered it and went to a norfis."

Old Kipps felt staggered for a moment, but he shook his head and chins sagely from side to side. As the memory of old Bean and Shalford revived, the confidence of Kipps came back to him.

"I saw a nold gent, Uncle--perfect gentleman. And 'e told me all about it. Mos' respectable 'e was. Said 'is name was Watson and Bean--leastways 'e was Bean. Said it was lef' me----" Kipps suddenly dived into his breast pocket. "By my Grandfather----"

The old people started.

Old Kipps uttered an exclamation and wheeled round towards the mantel shelf above which the daguerreotype of his lost younger sister smiled its fading smile upon the world.

"Waddy 'is name was," said Kipps, with his hand still deep in his pocket. "It was _'is_ son was my father----"

"Waddy!" said Old Kipps.

"Waddy!" said Mrs. Kipps.

"She'd never say," said Old Kipps.

There was a long silence.

Kipps fumbled with a letter, a crumpled advertis.e.m.e.nt and three bank notes. He hesitated between these items.

"Why! That young chap what was arsting questions----" said Old Kipps, and regarded his wife with an eye of amazement.

"Must 'ave been," said Mrs. Kipps.

"Must 'ave been," said Old Kipps.

"James," said Mrs. Kipps, in an awestricken voice, "after all--perhaps--it's true!"

"_'Ow_ much did you say?" asked Old Kipps. "'Ow much did you say 'ed lef' you, me b'y?"

It was thrilling, though not quite in the way Kipps had expected. He answered almost meekly across the meagre supper things, with his doc.u.mentary evidence in his hand:

"Twelve 'undred pounds. 'Proximately, he said. Twelve 'undred pounds a year. 'E made 'is will, jest before 'e died--not more'n a month ago.

When 'e was dying, 'e seemed to change like, Mr. Bean said. 'E'd never forgiven 'is son, never--not till then. 'Is son 'ad died in Australia, years and years ago, and _then_ 'e 'adn't forgiven 'im. You know--'is son what was my father. But jest when 'e was ill and dying 'e seemed to get worried like and longing for someone of 'is own. And 'e told Mr.

Bean it was 'im that had prevented them marrying. So 'e thought. That's 'ow it all come about...."

--6

At last Kipps' flaring candle went up the narrow uncarpeted staircase to the little attic that had been his shelter and refuge during all the days of his childhood and youth. His head was whirling. He had been advised, he had been warned, he had been flattered and congratulated, he had been given whiskey and hot water and lemon and sugar, and his health had been drunk in the same. He had also eaten two Welsh Rabbits--an unusual supper. His Uncle was chiefly for his going into Parliament, his Aunt was consumed with a great anxiety. "I'm afraid he'll go and marry beneath 'im."

"Y'ought to 'ave a bit o' shootin' somewheer," said Old Kipps.

"It's your _duty_ to marry into a county family, Artie. Remember that."

"There's lots of young n.o.blemen'll be glad to 'ang on to you," said Old Kipps. "You mark my words. And borry your money. And then, good day to ye."

"I got to be precious Careful," said Kipps. "Mr. Bean said that."

"And you got to be precious careful of this old Bean," said Old Kipps.

"We may be out of the world in Noo Romney, but I've 'eard a bit about s'licitors, for all that. You keep your eye on old Bean, me b'y.

"'Ow do we know what 'e's up to, with your money, even now?" said Old Kipps, pursuing this uncomfortable topic.

"'E _looked_ very respectable," said Kipps....

Kipps undressed with great deliberation, and with vast gaps of pensive margin. Twenty-six thousand pounds!

His Aunt's solicitude had brought back certain matters into the foreground that his "Twelve 'Undred a year!" had for a time driven away altogether. His thoughts went back to the wood-carving cla.s.s. Twelve Hundred a Year. He sat on the edge of the bed in profound meditation and his boots fell "whop" and "whop" upon the floor, with a long interval between each "whop." Twenty-five thousand pounds. "By Gum!" He dropped the remainder of his costume about him on the floor, got into bed, pulled the patchwork quilt over him and put his head on the pillow that had been first to hear of Ann p.o.r.nick's accession to his heart. But he did not think of Ann p.o.r.nick now.

It was about everything in the world except Ann p.o.r.nick that he seemed to be trying to think of--simultaneously. All the vivid happenings of the day came and went in his overtaxed brain; "that old Bean" explaining and explaining, the fat man who wouldn't believe, an overpowering smell of peppermint, the banjo, Miss Mergle saying he deserved it, Chitterlow's vanis.h.i.+ng round a corner, the wisdom and advice and warnings of his Aunt and Uncle. She was afraid he would marry beneath him, _was_ she? She didn't know....

His brain made an excursion into the wood-carving cla.s.s and presented Kipps with the picture of himself amazing that cla.s.s by a modest yet clearly audible remark, "I been left twenty-six thousand pounds."

Then he told them all quietly but firmly that he had always loved Miss Wals.h.i.+ngham, always, and so he had brought all his twenty-six thousand pounds with him to give to her there and then. He wanted nothing in return.... Yes, he wanted nothing in return. He would give it to her all in an envelope and go. Of course he would keep the banjo--and a little present for his Aunt and Uncle--and a new suit perhaps--and one or two other things she would not miss. He went off at a tangent. He might buy a motor car, he might buy one of these here things that will play you a piano--that would make old Buggins sit up! He could pretend he had learnt to play--he might buy a bicycle and a cyclist suit....

A terrific mult.i.tude of plans of what he might do and in particular of what he might buy, came crowding into his brain, and he did not so much fall asleep as pa.s.s into a disorder of dreams in which he was driving a four-horse Tip-Top coach down Sandgate Hill ("I shall have to be precious careful"), wearing innumerable suits of clothes, and through some terrible accident wearing them all wrong. Consequently he was being laughed at. The coach vanished in the interest of the costume. He was wearing golfing suits and a silk hat. This pa.s.sed into a nightmare that he was promenading on the Leas in a Highland costume, with a kilt that kept shrinking, and Shalford was following him with three policemen.

"He's my a.s.sistant," Shalford kept repeating; "he's escaped. He's an escaped Improver. Keep by him and in a minute you'll have to run him in.

I know 'em. We say they wash, but they won't."... He could feel the kilt creeping up his legs. He would have tugged at it to pull it down only his arms were paralysed. He had an impression of giddy crisis. He uttered a shriek of despair. "_Now!_" said Shalford. He woke in horror, his quilt had slipped off the bed.

He had a fancy he had just been called, that he had somehow overslept himself and missed going down for dusting. Then he perceived it was still night and light by reason of the moonlight, and that he was no longer in the Emporium. He wondered where he could be. He had a curious fancy that the world had been swept and rolled up like a carpet and that he was nowhere. It occurred to him that perhaps he was mad. "Buggins!"