The Phoenix and the Carpet
by E. Nesbit · English · Gutenberg #836 · 358,782 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Phoenix and the Carpet
Author: E. Nesbit
Release date: March 1, 1997 [eBook #836]
Most recently updated: October 11, 2016
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/836
Credits: Produced by Jo Churcher, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET ***
Produced by Jo Churcher
THE PHOENIX AND THE CARPET
E. Nesbit
TO
My Dear Godson
HUBERT GRIFFITH
and his sister
MARGARET
TO HUBERT
Dear Hubert, if I ever found
A wishing-carpet lying round,
I’d stand upon it, and I’d say:
‘Take me to Hubert, right away!’
And then we’d travel very far
To where the magic countries are
That you and I will never see,
And choose the loveliest gifts for you, from me.
But oh! alack! and well-a-day!
No wishing-carpets come my way.
I never found a Phoenix yet,
And Psammeads are so hard to get!
So I give you nothing fine--
Only this book your book and mine,
And hers, whose name by yours is set;
Your book, my book, the book of Margaret!
E. NESBIT
DYMCHURCH
September, 1904
CONTENTS
1 The Egg
2 The Topless Tower
3 The Queen Cook
4 Two Bazaars
5 The Temple
6 Doing Good
7 Mews from Persia
8 The Cats, the Cow, and the Burglar
9 The Burglar’s Bride
10 The Hole in the Carpet
11 The Beginning of the End
12 The End of the End
CHAPTER 1. THE EGG
It began with the day when it was almost the Fifth of November, and a
doubt arose in some breast--Robert’s, I fancy--as to the quality of the
fireworks laid in for the Guy Fawkes celebration.
‘They were jolly cheap,’ said whoever it was, and I think it was Robert,
‘and suppose they didn’t go off on the night? Those Prosser kids would
have something to snigger about then.’
‘The ones _I_ got are all right,’ Jane said; ‘I know they are, because
the man at the shop said they were worth thribble the money--’
‘I’m sure thribble isn’t grammar,’ Anthea said.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Cyril; ‘one word can’t be grammar all by
itself, so you needn’t be so jolly clever.’
Anthea was rummaging in the corner-drawers of her mind for a very
disagreeable answer, when she remembered what a wet day it was, and how
the boys had been disappointed of that ride to London and back on the
top of the tram, which their mother had promised them as a reward for
not having once forgotten, for six whole days, to wipe their boots on
the mat when they came home from school.
So Anthea only said, ‘Don’t be so jolly clever yourself, Squirrel. And
the fireworks look all right, and you’ll have the eightpence that your
tram fares didn’t cost to-day, to buy something more with. You ought to
get a perfectly lovely Catharine wheel for eightpence.’
‘I daresay,’ said Cyril, coldly; ‘but it’s not YOUR eightpence anyhow--’
‘But look here,’ said Robert, ‘really now, about the fireworks. We don’t
want to be disgraced before those kids next door. They think because
they wear red plush on Sundays no one else is any good.’
‘I wouldn’t wear plush if it was ever so--unless it was black to be
beheaded in, if I was Mary Queen of Scots,’ said Anthea, with scorn.
Robert stuck steadily to his point. One great point about Robert is the
steadiness with which he can stick.
‘I think we ought to test them,’ he said.
‘You young duffer,’ said Cyril, ‘fireworks are like postage-stamps. You
can only use them once.’
‘What do you suppose it means by “Carter’s tested seeds” in the
advertisement?’
There was a blank silence. Then Cyril touched his forehead with his
finger and shook his head.
‘A little wrong here,’ he said. ‘I was always afraid of that with poor
Robert. All that cleverness, you know, and being top in algebra so
often--it’s bound to tell--’
‘Dry up,’ said Robert, fiercely. ‘Don’t you see? You can’t TEST seeds if
you do them ALL. You just take a few here and there, and if those
grow you can feel pretty sure the others will be--what do you call
it?--Father told me--“up to sample”. Don’t you think we ought to sample
the fire-works? Just shut our eyes and each draw one out, and then try
them.’
‘But it’s raining cats and dogs,’ said Jane.
‘And Queen Anne is dead,’ rejoined Robert. No one was in a very good
temper. ‘We needn’t go out to do them; we can just move back the table,
and let them off on the old tea-tray we play toboggans with. I don’t
know what YOU think, but _I_ think it’s time we did something, and
that would be really useful; because then we shouldn’t just HOPE the
fireworks would make those Prossers sit up--we should KNOW.’
‘It WOULD be something to do,’ Cyril owned with languid approval.
So the table was moved back. And then the hole in the carpet, that
had been near the window till the carpet was turned round, showed most
awfully. But Anthea stole out on tip-toe, and got the tray when cook
wasn’t looking, and brought it in and put it over the hole.
Then all the fireworks were put on the table, and each of the four
children shut its eyes very tight and put out its hand and grasped
something. Robert took a cracker, Cyril and Anthea had Roman candles;
but Jane’s fat paw closed on the gem of the whole collection, the
Jack-in-the-box that had cost two shillings, and one at least of the
party--I will not say which, because it was sorry afterwards--declared
that Jane had done it on purpose. Nobody was pleased. For the worst of
it was that these four children, with a very proper dislike of anything
even faintly bordering on the sneakish, had a law, unalterable as those
of the Medes and Persians, that one had to stand by the results of a
toss-up, or a drawing of lots, or any other appeal to chance, however
much one might happen to dislike the way things were turning out.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ said Jane, near tears. ‘I don’t care, I’ll draw
another--’
‘You know jolly well you can’t,’ said Cyril, bitterly. ‘It’s settled.
It’s Medium and Persian. You’ve done it, and you’ll have to stand by
it--and us too, worse luck. Never mind. YOU’LL have your pocket-money
before the Fifth. Anyway, we’ll have the Jack-in-the-box LAST, and get
the most out of it we can.’
So the cracker and the Roman candles were lighted, and they were
all that could be expected for the money; but when it came to the
Jack-in-the-box it simply sat in the tray and laughed at them, as Cyril
said. They tried to light it with paper and they tried to light it with
matches; they tried to light it with Vesuvian fusees from the pocket
of father’s second-best overcoat that was hanging in the hall. And then
Anthea slipped away to the cupboard under the stairs where the brooms
and dustpans were kept, and the rosiny fire-lighters that smell so nice
and like the woods where pine-trees grow, and the old newspapers and the
bees-wax and turpentine, and the horrid an stiff dark rags that are used
for cleaning brass and furniture, and the paraffin for the lamps. She
came back with a little pot that had once cost sevenpence-halfpenny when
it was full of red-currant jelly; but the jelly had been all eaten long
ago, and now Anthea had filled the jar with paraffin. She came in, and
she threw the paraffin over the tray just at the moment when Cyril was
trying with the twenty-third match to light the Jack-in-the-box. The
Jack-in-the-box did not catch fire any more than usual, but the paraffin
acted quite differently, and in an instant a hot flash of flame leapt
up and burnt off Cyril’s eyelashes, and scorched the faces of all
four before they could spring back. They backed, in four instantaneous
bounds, as far as they could, which was to the wall, and the pillar of
fire reached from floor to ceiling.
‘My hat,’ said Cyril, with emotion, ‘You’ve done it this time, Anthea.’
The flame was spreading out under the ceiling like the rose of fire in
Mr Rider Haggard’s exciting story about Allan Quatermain. Robert and
Cyril saw that no time was to be lost. They turned up the edges of the
carpet, and kicked them over the tray. This cut off the column of fire,
and it disappeared and there was nothing left but smoke and a dreadful
smell of lamps that have been turned too low.
All hands now rushed to the rescue, and the paraffin fire was only a
bundle of trampled carpet, when suddenly a sharp crack beneath their
feet made the amateur firemen start back. Another crack--the carpet
moved as if it had had a cat wrapped in it; the Jack-in-the-box had at
last allowed itself to be lighted, and it was going off with desperate
violence inside the carpet.
Robert, with the air of one doing the only possible thing, rushed to the
window and opened it. Anthea screamed, Jane burst into tears, and
Cyril turned the table wrong way up on top of the carpet heap. But the
firework went on, banging and bursting and spluttering even underneath
the table.
Next moment mother rushed in, attracted by the howls of Anthea, and in a
few moments the firework desisted and there was a dead silence, and
the children stood looking at each other’s black faces, and, out of the
corners of their eyes, at mother’s white one.
The fact that the nursery carpet was ruined occasioned but little
surprise, nor was any one really astonished that bed should prove the
immediate end of the adventure. It has been said that all roads lead to
Rome; this may be true, but at any rate, in early youth I am quite sure
that many roads lead to BED, and stop there--or YOU do.
The rest of the fireworks were confiscated, and mother was not pleased
when father let them off himself in the back garden, though he said,
‘Well, how else can you get rid of them, my dear?’
You see, father had forgotten that the children were in disgrace, and
that their bedroom windows looked out on to the back garden. So that
they all saw the fireworks most beautifully, and admired the skill with
which father handled them.
Next day all was forgotten and forgiven; only the nursery had to
be deeply cleaned (like spring-cleaning), and the ceiling had to be
whitewashed.
And mother went out; and just at tea-time next day a man came with a
rolled-up carpet, and father paid him, and mother said--
‘If the carpet isn’t in good condition, you know, I shall expect you to
change it.’ And the man replied--
‘There ain’t a thread gone in it nowhere, mum. It’s a bargain, if ever
there was one, and I’m more’n ‘arf sorry I let it go at the price; but
we can’t resist the lydies, can we, sir?’ and he winked at father and
went away.
Then the carpet was put down in the nursery, and sure enough there
wasn’t a hole in it anywhere.
As the last fold was unrolled something hard and loud-sounding bumped
out of it and trundled along the nursery floor. All the children
scrambled for it, and Cyril got it. He took it to the gas. It was shaped
like an egg, very yellow and shiny, half-transparent, and it had an odd
sort of light in it that changed as you held it in different ways. It
was as though it was an egg with a yolk of pale fire that just showed
through the stone.
‘I MAY keep it, mayn’t I, mother?’ Cyril asked.
And of course mother said no; they must take it back to the man who had
brought the carpet, because she had only paid for a carpet, and not for
a stone egg with a fiery yolk to it.
So she told them where the shop was, and it was in the Kentish Town
Road, not far from the hotel that is called the Bull and Gate. It was
a poky little shop, and the man was arranging furniture outside on the
pavement very cunningly, so that the more broken parts should show as
little as possible. And directly he saw the children he knew them again,
and he began at once, without giving them a chance to speak.
‘No you don’t’ he cried loudly; ‘I ain’t a-goin’ to take back no
carpets, so don’t you make no bloomin’ errer. A bargain’s a bargain, and
the carpet’s puffik throughout.’
‘We don’t want you to take it back,’ said Cyril; ‘but we found something
in it.’
‘It must have got into it up at your place, then,’ said the man, with
indignant promptness, ‘for there ain’t nothing in nothing as I sell.
It’s all as clean as a whistle.’
‘I never said it wasn’t CLEAN,’ said Cyril, ‘but--’
‘Oh, if it’s MOTHS,’ said the man, ‘that’s easy cured with borax. But I
expect it was only an odd one. I tell you the carpet’s good through and
through. It hadn’t got no moths when it left my ‘ands--not so much as an
hegg.’
‘But that’s just it,’ interrupted Jane; ‘there WAS so much as an egg.’
The man made a sort of rush at the children and stamped his foot.
‘Clear out, I say!’ he shouted, ‘or I’ll call for the police. A nice
thing for customers to ‘ear you a-coming ‘ere a-charging me with finding
things in goods what I sells. ‘Ere, be off, afore I sends you off with a
flea in your ears. Hi! constable--’
The children fled, and they think, and their father thinks, that they
couldn’t have done anything else. Mother has her own opinion.
But father said they might keep the egg.
‘The man certainly didn’t know the egg was there when he brought the
carpet,’ said he, ‘any more than your mother did, and we’ve as much
right to it as he had.’
So the egg was put on the mantelpiece, where it quite brightened up the
dingy nursery. The nursery was dingy, because it was a basement room,
and its windows looked out on a stone area with a rockery made of
clinkers facing the windows. Nothing grew in the rockery except London
pride and snails.
The room had been described in the house agent’s list as a ‘convenient
breakfast-room in basement,’ and in the daytime it was rather dark. This
did not matter so much in the evenings when the gas was alight, but then
it was in the evening that the blackbeetles got so sociable, and used to
come out of the low cupboards on each side of the fireplace where their
homes were, and try to make friends with the children. At least, I
suppose that was what they wanted, but the children never would.
On the Fifth of November father and mother went to the theatre, and
the children were not happy, because the Prossers next door had lots of
fireworks and they had none.
They were not even allowed to have a bonfire in the garden.
‘No more playing with fire, thank you,’ was father’s answer, when they
asked him.
When the baby had been put to bed the children sat sadly round the fire
in the nursery.
‘I’m beastly bored,’ said Robert.
‘Let’s talk about the Psammead,’ said Anthea, who generally tried to
give the conversation a cheerful turn.
‘What’s the good of TALKING?’ said Cyril. ‘What I want is for something
to happen. It’s awfully stuffy for a chap not to be allowed out in the
evenings. There’s simply nothing to do when you’ve got through your
homers.’
Jane finished the last of her home-lessons and shut the book with a
bang.
‘We’ve got the pleasure of memory,’ said she. ‘Just think of last
holidays.’
Last holidays, indeed, offered something to think of--for they had
been spent in the country at a white house between a sand-pit and a
gravel-pit, and things had happened. The children had found a Psammead,
or sand-fairy, and it had let them have anything they wished for--just
exactly anything, with no bother about its not being really for their
good, or anything like that. And if you want to know what kind of things
they wished for, and how their wishes turned out you can read it all in
a book called Five Children and It (It was the Psammead). If you’ve not
read it, perhaps I ought to tell you that the fifth child was the baby
brother, who was called the Lamb, because the first thing he ever said
was ‘Baa!’ and that the other children were not particularly handsome,
nor were they extra clever, nor extraordinarily good. But they were not
bad sorts on the whole; in fact, they were rather like you.
‘I don’t want to think about the pleasures of memory,’ said Cyril; ‘I
want some more things to happen.’
‘We’re very much luckier than any one else, as it is,’ said Jane. ‘Why,
no one else ever found a Psammead. We ought to be grateful.’
‘Why shouldn’t we GO ON being, though?’ Cyril asked--‘lucky, I mean, not
grateful. Why’s it all got to stop?’
‘Perhaps something will happen,’ said Anthea, comfortably. ‘Do you know,
sometimes I think we are the sort of people that things DO happen to.’
‘It’s like that in history,’ said Jane: ‘some kings are full of
interesting things, and others--nothing ever happens to them, except
their being born and crowned and buried, and sometimes not that.’
‘I think Panther’s right,’ said Cyril: ‘I think we are the sort of
people things do happen to. I have a sort of feeling things would happen
right enough if we could only give them a shove. It just wants something
to start it. That’s all.’
‘I wish they taught magic at school,’ Jane sighed. ‘I believe if we
could do a little magic it might make something happen.’
‘I wonder how you begin?’ Robert looked round the room, but he got no
ideas from the faded green curtains, or the drab Venetian blinds, or
the worn brown oil-cloth on the floor. Even the new carpet suggested
nothing, though its pattern was a very wonderful one, and always seemed
as though it were just going to make you think of something.
‘I could begin right enough,’ said Anthea; ‘I’ve read lots about it. But
I believe it’s wrong in the Bible.’
‘It’s only wrong in the Bible because people wanted to hurt other
people. I don’t see how things can be wrong unless they hurt somebody,
and we don’t want to hurt anybody; and what’s more, we jolly well
couldn’t if we tried. Let’s get the Ingoldsby Legends. There’s a thing
about Abra-cadabra there,’ said Cyril, yawning. ‘We may as well play at
magic. Let’s be Knights Templars. They were awfully gone on magic. They
used to work spells or something with a goat and a goose. Father says
so.’
‘Well, that’s all right,’ said Robert, unkindly; ‘you can play the goat
right enough, and Jane knows how to be a goose.’
‘I’ll get Ingoldsby,’ said Anthea, hastily. ‘You turn up the hearthrug.’
So they traced strange figures on the linoleum, where the hearthrug had
kept it clean. They traced them with chalk that Robert had nicked
from the top of the mathematical master’s desk at school. You know, of
course, that it is stealing to take a new stick of chalk, but it is not
wrong to take a broken piece, so long as you only take one. (I do not
know the reason of this rule, nor who made it.) And they chanted all the
gloomiest songs they could think of. And, of course, nothing happened.
So then Anthea said, ‘I’m sure a magic fire ought to be made of
sweet-smelling wood, and have magic gums and essences and things in it.’
‘I don’t know any sweet-smelling wood, except cedar,’ said Robert; ‘but
I’ve got some ends of cedar-wood lead pencil.’
So they burned the ends of lead pencil. And still nothing happened.
‘Let’s burn some of the eucalyptus oil we have for our colds,’ said
Anthea.
And they did. It certainly smelt very strong. And they burned lumps
of camphor out of the big chest. It was very bright, and made a horrid
black smoke, which looked very magical. But still nothing happened. Then
they got some clean tea-cloths from the dresser drawer in the kitchen,
and waved them over the magic chalk-tracings, and sang ‘The Hymn of the
Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem’, which is very impressive. And still nothing
happened. So they waved more and more wildly, and Robert’s tea-cloth
caught the golden egg and whisked it off the mantelpiece, and it fell
into the fender and rolled under the grate.
‘Oh, crikey!’ said more than one voice.
And every one instantly fell down flat on its front to look under the
grate, and there lay the egg, glowing in a nest of hot ashes.
‘It’s not smashed, anyhow,’ said Robert, and he put his hand under the
grate and picked up the egg. But the egg was much hotter than any one
would have believed it could possibly get in such a short time, and
Robert had to drop it with a cry of ‘Bother!’ It fell on the top bar of
the grate, and bounced right into the glowing red-hot heart of the fire.
‘The tongs!’ cried Anthea. But, alas, no one could remember where they
were. Every one had forgotten that the tongs had last been used to fish
up the doll’s teapot from the bottom of the water-butt, where the Lamb
had dropped it. So the nursery tongs were resting between the water-butt
and the dustbin, and cook refused to lend the kitchen ones.
‘Never mind,’ said Robert, ‘we’ll get it out with the poker and the
shovel.’
‘Oh, stop,’ cried Anthea. ‘Look at it! Look! look! look! I do believe
something IS going to happen!’
For the egg was now red-hot, and inside it something was moving. Next
moment there was a soft cracking sound; the egg burst in two, and out of
it came a flame-coloured bird. It rested a moment among the flames, and
as it rested there the four children could see it growing bigger and
bigger under their eyes.
Every mouth was a-gape, every eye a-goggle.
The bird rose in its nest of fire, stretched its wings, and flew out
into the room. It flew round and round, and round again, and where it
passed the air was warm. Then it perched on the fender. The children
looked at each other. Then Cyril put out a hand towards the bird. It put
its head on one side and looked up at him, as you may have seen a parrot
do when it is just going to speak, so that the children were hardly
astonished at all when it said, ‘Be careful; I am not nearly cool yet.’
They were not astonished, but they were very, very much interested.
They looked at the bird, and it was certainly worth looking at. Its
feathers were like gold. It was about as large as a bantam, only its
beak was not at all bantam-shaped. ‘I believe I know what it is,’ said
Robert. ‘I’ve seen a picture.’
He hurried away. A hasty dash and scramble among the papers on father’s
study table yielded, as the sum-books say, ‘the desired result’. But
when he came back into the room holding out a paper, and crying, ‘I say,
look here,’ the others all said ‘Hush!’ and he hushed obediently and
instantly, for the bird was speaking.
‘Which of you,’ it was saying, ‘put the egg into the fire?’
‘He did,’ said three voices, and three fingers pointed at Robert.
The bird bowed; at least it was more like that than anything else.
‘I am your grateful debtor,’ it said with a high-bred air.
The children were all choking with wonder and curiosity--all except
Robert. He held the paper in his hand, and he KNEW. He said so. He
said--
‘_I_ know who you are.’
And he opened and displayed a printed paper, at the head of which was a
little picture of a bird sitting in a nest of flames.
‘You are the Phoenix,’ said Robert; and the bird was quite pleased.
‘My fame has lived then for two thousand years,’ it said. ‘Allow me to
look at my portrait.’ It looked at the page which Robert, kneeling down,
spread out in the fender, and said--
‘It’s not a flattering likeness... And what are these characters?’ it
asked, pointing to the printed part.
‘Oh, that’s all dullish; it’s not much about YOU, you know,’ said Cyril,
with unconscious politeness; ‘but you’re in lots of books.’
‘With portraits?’ asked the Phoenix.
‘Well, no,’ said Cyril; ‘in fact, I don’t think I ever saw any portrait
of you but that one, but I can read you something about yourself, if you
like.’
The Phoenix nodded, and Cyril went off and fetched Volume X of the old
Encyclopedia, and on page 246 he found the following:--
‘Phoenix--in ornithology, a fabulous bird of antiquity.’
‘Antiquity is quite correct,’ said the Phoenix, ‘but fabulous--well, do
I look it?’
Every one shook its head. Cyril went on--
‘The ancients speak of this bird as single, or the only one of its
kind.’
‘That’s right enough,’ said the Phoenix.
‘They describe it as about the size of an eagle.’
‘Eagles are of different sizes,’ said the Phoenix; ‘it’s not at all a
good description.’
All the children were kneeling on the hearthrug, to be as near the
Phoenix as possible.
‘You’ll boil your brains,’ it said. ‘Look out, I’m nearly cool now;’ and
with a whirr of golden wings it fluttered from the fender to the table.
It was so nearly cool that there was only a very faint smell of burning
when it had settled itself on the table-cloth.
‘It’s only a very little scorched,’ said the Phoenix, apologetically;
‘it will come out in the wash. Please go on reading.’
The children gathered round the table.
‘The size of an eagle,’ Cyril went on, ‘its head finely crested with a
beautiful plumage, its neck covered with feathers of a gold colour, and
the rest of its body purple; only the tail white, and the eyes sparkling
like stars. They say that it lives about five hundred years in the
wilderness, and when advanced in age it builds itself a pile of sweet
wood and aromatic gums, fires it with the wafting of its wings, and thus
burns itself; and that from its ashes arises a worm, which in time grows
up to be a Phoenix. Hence the Phoenicians gave--’
‘Never mind what they gave,’ said the Phoenix, ruffling its golden
feathers. ‘They never gave much, anyway; they always were people who
gave nothing for nothing. That book ought to be destroyed. It’s
most inaccurate. The rest of my body was never purple, and as for
my--tail--well, I simply ask you, IS it white?’
It turned round and gravely presented its golden tail to the children.
‘No, it’s not,’ said everybody.
‘No, and it never was,’ said the Phoenix. ‘And that about the worm
is just a vulgar insult. The Phoenix has an egg, like all respectable
birds. It makes a pile--that part’s all right--and it lays its egg, and
it burns itself; and it goes to sleep and wakes up in its egg, and comes
out and goes on living again, and so on for ever and ever. I can’t tell
you how weary I got of it--such a restless existence; no repose.’
‘But how did your egg get HERE?’ asked Anthea.
‘Ah, that’s my life-secret,’ said the Phoenix. ‘I couldn’t tell it to
any one who wasn’t really sympathetic. I’ve always been a misunderstood
bird. You can tell that by what they say about the worm. I might tell
YOU,’ it went on, looking at Robert with eyes that were indeed starry.
‘You put me on the fire--’ Robert looked uncomfortable.
‘The rest of us made the fire of sweet-scented woods and gums, though,’
said Cyril.
‘And--and it was an accident my putting you on the fire,’ said Robert,
telling the truth with some difficulty, for he did not know how the
Phoenix might take it. It took it in the most unexpected manner.
‘Your candid avowal,’ it said, ‘removes my last scruple. I will tell you
my story.’
‘And you won’t vanish, or anything sudden will you? asked Anthea,
anxiously.
‘Why?’ it asked, puffing out the golden feathers, ‘do you wish me to
stay here?’
‘Oh YES,’ said every one, with unmistakable sincerity.
‘Why?’ asked the Phoenix again, looking modestly at the table-cloth.
‘Because,’ said every one at once, and then stopped short; only Jane
added after a pause, ‘you are the most beautiful person we’ve ever
seen.’ ‘You are a sensible child,’ said the Phoenix, ‘and I will NOT
vanish or anything sudden. And I will tell you my tale. I had resided,
as your book says, for many thousand years in the wilderness, which is
a large, quiet place with very little really good society, and I was
becoming weary of the monotony of my existence. But I acquired the habit
of laying my egg and burning myself every five hundred years--and you
know how difficult it is to break yourself of a habit.’
‘Yes,’ said Cyril; ‘Jane used to bite her nails.’
‘But I broke myself of it,’ urged Jane, rather hurt, ‘You know I did.’
‘Not till they put bitter aloes on them,’ said Cyril.
‘I doubt,’ said the bird, gravely, ‘whether even bitter aloes (the aloe,
by the way, has a bad habit of its own, which it might well cure before
seeking to cure others; I allude to its indolent practice of flowering
but once a century), I doubt whether even bitter aloes could have cured
ME. But I WAS cured. I awoke one morning from a feverish dream--it was
getting near the time for me to lay that tiresome fire and lay that
tedious egg upon it--and I saw two people, a man and a woman. They were
sitting on a carpet--and when I accosted them civilly they narrated to
me their life-story, which, as you have not yet heard it, I will now
proceed to relate. They were a prince and princess, and the story of
their parents was one which I am sure you will like to hear. In early
youth the mother of the princess happened to hear the story of a certain
enchanter, and in that story I am sure you will be interested. The
enchanter--’
‘Oh, please don’t,’ said Anthea. ‘I can’t understand all these
beginnings of stories, and you seem to be getting deeper and deeper in
them every minute. Do tell us your OWN story. That’s what we really want
to hear.’
‘Well,’ said the Phoenix, seeming on the whole rather flattered, ‘to
cut about seventy long stories short (though _I_ had to listen to them
all--but to be sure in the wilderness there is plenty of time), this
prince and princess were so fond of each other that they did not want
any one else, and the enchanter--don’t be alarmed, I won’t go into
his history--had given them a magic carpet (you’ve heard of a magic
carpet?), and they had just sat on it and told it to take them right
away from every one--and it had brought them to the wilderness. And as
they meant to stay there they had no further use for the carpet, so they
gave it to me. That was indeed the chance of a lifetime!’
‘I don’t see what you wanted with a carpet,’ said Jane, ‘when you’ve got
those lovely wings.’
‘They ARE nice wings, aren’t they?’ said the Phoenix, simpering and
spreading them out. ‘Well, I got the prince to lay out the carpet, and I
laid my egg on it; then I said to the carpet, “Now, my excellent carpet,
prove your worth. Take that egg somewhere where it can’t be hatched for
two thousand years, and where, when that time’s up, some one will light
a fire of sweet wood and aromatic gums, and put the egg in to hatch;”
and you see it’s all come out exactly as I said. The words were no
sooner out of my beak than egg and carpet disappeared. The royal lovers
assisted to arrange my pile, and soothed my last moments. I burnt myself
up and knew no more till I awoke on yonder altar.’
It pointed its claw at the grate.
‘But the carpet,’ said Robert, ‘the magic carpet that takes you anywhere
you wish. What became of that?’
‘Oh, THAT?’ said the Phoenix, carelessly--‘I should say that that is the
carpet. I remember the pattern perfectly.’
It pointed as it spoke to the floor, where lay the carpet which mother
had bought in the Kentish Town Road for twenty-two shillings and
ninepence.
At that instant father’s latch-key was heard in the door.
‘OH,’ whispered Cyril, ‘now we shall catch it for not being in bed!’
‘Wish yourself there,’ said the Phoenix, in a hurried whisper, ‘and then
wish the carpet back in its place.’
No sooner said than done. It made one a little giddy, certainly, and a
little breathless; but when things seemed right way up again, there the
children were, in bed, and the lights were out.
They heard the soft voice of the Phoenix through the darkness.
‘I shall sleep on the cornice above your curtains,’ it said. ‘Please
don’t mention me to your kinsfolk.’
‘Not much good,’ said Robert, ‘they’d never believe us. I say,’ he
called through the half-open door to the girls; ‘talk about adventures
and things happening. We ought to be able to get some fun out of a magic
carpet AND a Phoenix.’
‘Rather,’ said the girls, in bed.
‘Children,’ said father, on the stairs, ‘go to sleep at once. What do
you mean by talking at this time of night?’
No answer was expected to this question, but under the bedclothes Cyril
murmured one.
‘Mean?’ he said. ‘Don’t know what we mean. I don’t know what anything
means.’
‘But we’ve got a magic carpet AND a Phoenix,’ said Robert.
‘You’ll get something else if father comes in and catches you,’ said
Cyril. ‘Shut up, I tell you.’
Robert shut up. But he knew as well as you do that the adventures of
that carpet and that Phoenix were only just beginning.
Father and mother had not the least idea of what had happened in their
absence. This is often the case, even when there are no magic carpets or
Phoenixes in the house.
The next morning--but I am sure you would rather wait till the next
chapter before you hear about THAT.
CHAPTER 2. THE TOPLESS TOWER
The children had seen the Phoenix-egg hatched in the flames in their own
nursery grate, and had heard from it how the carpet on their own nursery
floor was really the wishing carpet, which would take them anywhere they
chose. The carpet had transported them to bed just at the right
moment, and the Phoenix had gone to roost on the cornice supporting the
window-curtains of the boys’ room.
‘Excuse me,’ said a gentle voice, and a courteous beak opened, very
kindly and delicately, the right eye of Cyril. ‘I hear the slaves below
preparing food. Awaken! A word of explanation and arrangement... I do
wish you wouldn’t--’
The Phoenix stopped speaking and fluttered away crossly to the
cornice-pole; for Cyril had hit out, as boys do when they are awakened
suddenly, and the Phoenix was not used to boys, and his feelings, if not
his wings, were hurt.
‘Sorry,’ said Cyril, coming awake all in a minute. ‘Do come back! What
was it you were saying? Something about bacon and rations?’
The Phoenix fluttered back to the brass rail at the foot of the bed.
‘I say--you ARE real,’ said Cyril. ‘How ripping! And the carpet?’
‘The carpet is as real as it ever was,’ said the Phoenix, rather
contemptuously; ‘but, of course, a carpet’s only a carpet, whereas a
Phoenix is superlatively a Phoenix.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Cyril, ‘I see it is. Oh, what luck! Wake up, Bobs!
There’s jolly well something to wake up for today. And it’s Saturday,
too.’
‘I’ve been reflecting,’ said the Phoenix, ‘during the silent watches
of the night, and I could not avoid the conclusion that you were quite
insufficiently astonished at my appearance yesterday. The ancients were
always VERY surprised. Did you, by chance, EXPECT my egg to hatch?’
‘Not us,’ Cyril said.
‘And if we had,’ said Anthea, who had come in in her nightie when she
heard the silvery voice of the Phoenix, ‘we could never, never have
expected it to hatch anything so splendid as you.’
The bird smiled. Perhaps you’ve never seen a bird smile?
‘You see,’ said Anthea, wrapping herself in the boys’ counterpane, for
the morning was chill, ‘we’ve had things happen to us before;’ and she
told the story of the Psammead, or sand-fairy.
‘Ah yes,’ said the Phoenix; ‘Psammeads were rare, even in my time. I
remember I used to be called the Psammead of the Desert. I was always
having compliments paid me; I can’t think why.’
‘Can YOU give wishes, then?’ asked Jane, who had now come in too.
‘Oh, dear me, no,’ said the Phoenix, contemptuously, ‘at least--but I
hear footsteps approaching. I hasten to conceal myself.’ And it did.
I think I said that this day was Saturday. It was also cook’s birthday,
and mother had allowed her and Eliza to go to the Crystal Palace with a
party of friends, so Jane and Anthea of course had to help to make beds
and to wash up the breakfast cups, and little things like that. Robert
and Cyril intended to spend the morning in conversation with the
Phoenix, but the bird had its own ideas about this.
‘I must have an hour or two’s quiet,’ it said, ‘I really must. My nerves
will give way unless I can get a little rest. You must remember it’s two
thousand years since I had any conversation--I’m out of practice, and I
must take care of myself. I’ve often been told that mine is a valuable
life.’ So it nestled down inside an old hatbox of father’s, which had
been brought down from the box-room some days before, when a helmet was
suddenly needed for a game of tournaments, with its golden head under
its golden wing, and went to sleep. So then Robert and Cyril moved
the table back and were going to sit on the carpet and wish themselves
somewhere else. But before they could decide on the place, Cyril said--
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s rather sneakish to begin without the girls.’
‘They’ll be all the morning,’ said Robert, impatiently. And then a thing
inside him, which tiresome books sometimes call the ‘inward monitor’,
said, ‘Why don’t you help them, then?’
Cyril’s ‘inward monitor’ happened to say the same thing at the same
moment, so the boys went and helped to wash up the tea-cups, and to dust
the drawing-room. Robert was so interested that he proposed to clean
the front doorsteps--a thing he had never been allowed to do. Nor was
he allowed to do it on this occasion. One reason was that it had already
been done by cook.
When all the housework was finished, the girls dressed the happy,
wriggling baby in his blue highwayman coat and three-cornered hat, and
kept him amused while mother changed her dress and got ready to take
him over to granny’s. Mother always went to granny’s every Saturday,
and generally some of the children went with her; but today they were to
keep house. And their hearts were full of joyous and delightful feelings
every time they remembered that the house they would have to keep had a
Phoenix in it, AND a wishing carpet.
You can always keep the Lamb good and happy for quite a long time if you
play the Noah’s Ark game with him. It is quite simple. He just sits on
your lap and tells you what animal he is, and then you say the little
poetry piece about whatever animal he chooses to be.
Of course, some of the animals, like the zebra and the tiger, haven’t
got any poetry, because they are so difficult to rhyme to. The Lamb
knows quite well which are the poetry animals.
‘I’m a baby bear!’ said the Lamb, snugging down; and Anthea began:
‘I love my little baby bear,
I love his nose and toes and hair;
I like to hold him in my arm,
And keep him VERY safe and warm.’
And when she said ‘very’, of course there was a real bear’s hug.
Then came the eel, and the Lamb was tickled till he wriggled exactly
like a real one:
‘I love my little baby eel,
He is so squidglety to feel;
He’ll be an eel when he is big--
But now he’s just--a--tiny SNIG!’
Perhaps you didn’t know that a snig was a baby eel? It is, though, and
the Lamb knew it.
‘Hedgehog now-!’ he said; and Anthea went on:
‘My baby hedgehog, how I like ye,
Though your back’s so prickly-spiky;
Your front is very soft, I’ve found,
So I must love you front ways round!’
And then she loved him front ways round, while he squealed with
pleasure.
It is a very baby game, and, of course, the rhymes are only meant for
very, very small people--not for people who are old enough to read
books, so I won’t tell you any more of them.
By the time the Lamb had been a baby lion and a baby weazel, and a baby
rabbit and a baby rat, mother was ready; and she and the Lamb, having
been kissed by everybody and hugged as thoroughly as it is possible to
be when you’re dressed for out-of-doors, were seen to the tram by the
boys. When the boys came back, every one looked at every one else and
said--
‘Now!’
They locked the front door and they locked the back door, and they
fastened all the windows. They moved the table and chairs off the
carpet, and Anthea swept it.
‘We must show it a LITTLE attention,’ she said kindly. ‘We’ll give it
tea-leaves next time. Carpets like tea-leaves.’
Then every one put on its out-door things, because as Cyril said, they
didn’t know where they might be going, and it makes people stare if you
go out of doors in November in pinafores and without hats.
Then Robert gently awoke the Phoenix, who yawned and stretched itself,
and allowed Robert to lift it on to the middle of the carpet, where it
instantly went to sleep again with its crested head tucked under its
golden wing as before. Then every one sat down on the carpet.
‘Where shall we go?’ was of course the question, and it was warmly
discussed. Anthea wanted to go to Japan. Robert and Cyril voted for
America, and Jane wished to go to the seaside.
‘Because there are donkeys there,’ said she.
‘Not in November, silly,’ said Cyril; and the discussion got warmer and
warmer, and still nothing was settled.
‘I vote we let the Phoenix decide,’ said Robert, at last. So they
stroked it till it woke. ‘We want to go somewhere abroad,’ they said,
‘and we can’t make up our minds where.’
‘Let the carpet make up ITS mind, if it has one,’ said the Phoenix.
‘Just say you wish to go abroad.’
So they did; and the next moment the world seemed to spin upside down,
and when it was right way up again and they were ungiddy enough to look
about them, they were out of doors.
Out of doors--this is a feeble way to express where they were. They
were out of--out of the earth, or off it. In fact, they were floating
steadily, safely, splendidly, in the crisp clear air, with the pale
bright blue of the sky above them, and far down below the pale bright
sun-diamonded waves of the sea. The carpet had stiffened itself somehow,
so that it was square and firm like a raft, and it steered itself so
beautifully and kept on its way so flat and fearless that no one was at
all afraid of tumbling off. In front of them lay land.
‘The coast of France,’ said the Phoenix, waking up and pointing with
its wing. ‘Where do you wish to go? I should always keep one wish, of
course--for emergencies--otherwise you may get into an emergency from
which you can’t emerge at all.’
But the children were far too deeply interested to listen.
‘I tell you what,’ said Cyril: ‘let’s let the thing go on and on, and
when we see a place we really want to stop at--why, we’ll just stop.
Isn’t this ripping?’
‘It’s like trains,’ said Anthea, as they swept over the low-lying
coast-line and held a steady course above orderly fields and straight
roads bordered with poplar trees--‘like express trains, only in trains
you never can see anything because of grown-ups wanting the windows
shut; and then they breathe on them, and it’s like ground glass, and
nobody can see anything, and then they go to sleep.’
‘It’s like tobogganing,’ said Robert, ‘so fast and smooth, only there’s
no door-mat to stop short on--it goes on and on.’
‘You darling Phoenix,’ said Jane, ‘it’s all your doing. Oh, look at
that ducky little church and the women with flappy cappy things on their
heads.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said the Phoenix, with sleepy politeness.
‘OH!’ said Cyril, summing up all the rapture that was in every heart.
‘Look at it all--look at it--and think of the Kentish Town Road!’
Every one looked and every one thought. And the glorious, gliding,
smooth, steady rush went on, and they looked down on strange and
beautiful things, and held their breath and let it go in deep sighs, and
said ‘Oh!’ and ‘Ah!’ till it was long past dinner-time.
It was Jane who suddenly said, ‘I wish we’d brought that jam tart and
cold mutton with us. It would have been jolly to have a picnic in the
air.’
The jam tart and cold mutton were, however, far away, sitting quietly in
the larder of the house in Camden Town which the children were supposed
to be keeping. A mouse was at that moment tasting the outside of the
raspberry jam part of the tart (she had nibbled a sort of gulf, or bay,
through the pastry edge) to see whether it was the sort of dinner she
could ask her little mouse-husband to sit down to. She had had a very
good dinner herself. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
‘We’ll stop as soon as we see a nice place,’ said Anthea. ‘I’ve got
threepence, and you boys have the fourpence each that your trams didn’t
cost the other day, so we can buy things to eat. I expect the Phoenix
can speak French.’
The carpet was sailing along over rocks and rivers and trees and towns
and farms and fields. It reminded everybody of a certain time when all
of them had had wings, and had flown up to the top of a church tower,
and had had a feast there of chicken and tongue and new bread and
soda-water. And this again reminded them how hungry they were. And just
as they were all being reminded of this very strongly indeed, they saw
ahead of them some ruined walls on a hill, and strong and upright, and
really, to look at, as good as new--a great square tower.
‘The top of that’s just the exactly same size as the carpet,’ said Jane.
‘_I_ think it would be good to go to the top of that, because then none
of the Abby-what’s-its-names--I mean natives--would be able to take the
carpet away even if they wanted to. And some of us could go out and get
things to eat--buy them honestly, I mean, not take them out of larder
windows.’
‘I think it would be better if we went--’ Anthea was beginning; but Jane
suddenly clenched her hands.
‘I don’t see why I should never do anything I want, just because I’m
the youngest. I wish the carpet would fit itself in at the top of that
tower--so there!’
The carpet made a disconcerting bound, and next moment it was hovering
above the square top of the tower. Then slowly and carefully it began to
sink under them. It was like a lift going down with you at the Army and
Navy Stores.
‘I don’t think we ought to wish things without all agreeing to them
first,’ said Robert, huffishly. ‘Hullo! What on earth?’
For unexpectedly and greyly something was coming up all round the four
sides of the carpet. It was as if a wall were being built by magic
quickness. It was a foot high--it was two feet high--three, four, five.
It was shutting out the light--more and more.
Anthea looked up at the sky and the walls that now rose six feet above
them.
‘We’re dropping into the tower,’ she screamed. ‘THERE WASN’T ANY TOP TO
IT. So the carpet’s going to fit itself in at the bottom.’
Robert sprang to his feet.
‘We ought to have--Hullo! an owl’s nest.’ He put his knee on a jutting
smooth piece of grey stone, and reached his hand into a deep window
slit--broad to the inside of the tower, and narrowing like a funnel to
the outside.
‘Look sharp!’ cried every one, but Robert did not look sharp enough. By
the time he had drawn his hand out of the owl’s nest--there were no eggs
there--the carpet had sunk eight feet below him.
‘Jump, you silly cuckoo!’ cried Cyril, with brotherly anxiety.
But Robert couldn’t turn round all in a minute into a jumping position.
He wriggled and twisted and got on to the broad ledge, and by the time
he was ready to jump the walls of the tower had risen up thirty feet
above the others, who were still sinking with the carpet, and Robert
found himself in the embrasure of a window; alone, for even the owls
were not at home that day. The wall was smoothish; there was no climbing
up, and as for climbing down--Robert hid his face in his hands, and
squirmed back and back from the giddy verge, until the back part of him
was wedged quite tight in the narrowest part of the window slit.
He was safe now, of course, but the outside part of his window was like
a frame to a picture of part of the other side of the tower. It was very
pretty, with moss growing between the stones and little shiny gems; but
between him and it there was the width of the tower, and nothing in it
but empty air. The situation was terrible. Robert saw in a flash that
the carpet was likely to bring them into just the same sort of tight
places that they used to get into with the wishes the Psammead granted
them.
And the others--imagine their feelings as the carpet sank slowly and
steadily to the very bottom of the tower, leaving Robert clinging to the
wall. Robert did not even try to imagine their feelings--he had quite
enough to do with his own; but you can.
As soon as the carpet came to a stop on the ground at the bottom of the
inside of the tower it suddenly lost that raft-like stiffness which had
been such a comfort during the journey from Camden Town to the topless
tower, and spread itself limply over the loose stones and little earthy
mounds at the bottom of the tower, just exactly like any ordinary
carpet. Also it shrank suddenly, so that it seemed to draw away from
under their feet, and they stepped quickly off the edges and stood on
the firm ground, while the carpet drew itself in till it was its proper
size, and no longer fitted exactly into the inside of the tower, but
left quite a big space all round it.
Then across the carpet they looked at each other, and then every chin
was tilted up and every eye sought vainly to see where poor Robert had
got to. Of course, they couldn’t see him.
‘I wish we hadn’t come,’ said Jane.
‘You always do,’ said Cyril, briefly. ‘Look here, we can’t leave Robert
up there. I wish the carpet would fetch him down.’
The carpet seemed to awake from a dream and pull itself together. It
stiffened itself briskly and floated up between the four walls of the
tower. The children below craned their heads back, and nearly broke
their necks in doing it. The carpet rose and rose. It hung poised darkly
above them for an anxious moment or two; then it dropped down again,
threw itself on the uneven floor of the tower, and as it did so it
tumbled Robert out on the uneven floor of the tower.
‘Oh, glory!’ said Robert, ‘that was a squeak. You don’t know how I felt.
I say, I’ve had about enough for a bit. Let’s wish ourselves at home
again and have a go at that jam tart and mutton. We can go out again
afterwards.’
‘Righto!’ said every one, for the adventure had shaken the nerves of
all. So they all got on to the carpet again, and said--
‘I wish we were at home.’
And lo and behold, they were no more at home than before. The carpet
never moved. The Phoenix had taken the opportunity to go to sleep.
Anthea woke it up gently.
‘Look here,’ she said.
‘I’m looking,’ said the Phoenix.
‘We WISHED to be at home, and we’re still here,’ complained Jane.
‘No,’ said the Phoenix, looking about it at the high dark walls of the
tower. ‘No; I quite see that.’
‘But we wished to be at home,’ said Cyril.
‘No doubt,’ said the bird, politely.
‘And the carpet hasn’t moved an inch,’ said Robert.
‘No,’ said the Phoenix, ‘I see it hasn’t.’
‘But I thought it was a wishing carpet?’
‘So it is,’ said the Phoenix.
‘Then why--?’ asked the children, altogether.
‘I did tell you, you know,’ said the Phoenix, ‘only you are so fond
of listening to the music of your own voices. It is, indeed, the most
lovely music to each of us, and therefore--’
‘You did tell us WHAT?’ interrupted an Exasperated.
‘Why, that the carpet only gives you three wishes a day and YOU’VE HAD
THEM.’
There was a heartfelt silence.
‘Then how are we going to get home?’ said Cyril, at last.
‘I haven’t any idea,’ replied the Phoenix, kindly. ‘Can I fly out and
get you any little thing?’
‘How could you carry the money to pay for it?’
‘It isn’t necessary. Birds always take what they want. It is not
regarded as stealing, except in the case of magpies.’
The children were glad to find they had been right in supposing this to
be the case, on the day when they had wings, and had enjoyed somebody
else’s ripe plums.
‘Yes; let the Phoenix get us something to eat, anyway,’ Robert urged--’
[‘If it will be so kind you mean,’ corrected Anthea, in a whisper); ‘if
it will be so kind, and we can be thinking while it’s gone.’
So the Phoenix fluttered up through the grey space of the tower and
vanished at the top, and it was not till it had quite gone that Jane
said--
‘Suppose it never comes back.’
It was not a pleasant thought, and though Anthea at once said, ‘Of
course it will come back; I’m certain it’s a bird of its word,’ a
further gloom was cast by the idea. For, curiously enough, there was
no door to the tower, and all the windows were far, far too high to be
reached by the most adventurous climber. It was cold, too, and Anthea
shivered.
‘Yes,’ said Cyril, ‘it’s like being at the bottom of a well.’
The children waited in a sad and hungry silence, and got little stiff
necks with holding their little heads back to look up the inside of the
tall grey tower, to see if the Phoenix were coming.
At last it came. It looked very big as it fluttered down between the
walls, and as it neared them the children saw that its bigness was
caused by a basket of boiled chestnuts which it carried in one claw.
In the other it held a piece of bread. And in its beak was a very large
pear. The pear was juicy, and as good as a very small drink. When the
meal was over every one felt better, and the question of how to get home
was discussed without any disagreeableness. But no one could think
of any way out of the difficulty, or even out of the tower; for the
Phoenix, though its beak and claws had fortunately been strong enough
to carry food for them, was plainly not equal to flying through the air
with four well-nourished children.
‘We must stay here, I suppose,’ said Robert at last, ‘and shout out
every now and then, and some one will hear us and bring ropes and
ladders, and rescue us like out of mines; and they’ll get up a
subscription to send us home, like castaways.’
‘Yes; but we shan’t be home before mother is, and then father’ll take
away the carpet and say it’s dangerous or something,’ said Cyril.
‘I DO wish we hadn’t come,’ said Jane.
And every one else said ‘Shut up,’ except Anthea, who suddenly awoke the
Phoenix and said--
‘Look here, I believe YOU can help us. Oh, I do wish you would!’
‘I will help you as far as lies in my power,’ said the Phoenix, at once.
‘What is it you want now?’
‘Why, we want to get home,’ said every one.
‘Oh,’ said the Phoenix. ‘Ah, hum! Yes. Home, you said? Meaning?’
‘Where we live--where we slept last night--where the altar is that your
egg was hatched on.’
‘Oh, there!’ said the Phoenix. ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’ It fluttered on
to the carpet and walked up and down for a few minutes in deep thought.
Then it drew itself up proudly.
‘I CAN help you,’ it said. ‘I am almost sure I can help you. Unless I
am grossly deceived I can help you. You won’t mind my leaving you for an
hour or two?’ and without waiting for a reply it soared up through the
dimness of the tower into the brightness above.
‘Now,’ said Cyril, firmly, ‘it said an hour or two. But I’ve read
about captives and people shut up in dungeons and catacombs and things
awaiting release, and I know each moment is an eternity. Those people
always do something to pass the desperate moments. It’s no use our
trying to tame spiders, because we shan’t have time.’
‘I HOPE not,’ said Jane, doubtfully.
‘But we ought to scratch our names on the stones or something.’
‘I say, talking of stones,’ said Robert, ‘you see that heap of stones
against the wall over in that corner. Well, I’m certain there’s a hole
in the wall there--and I believe it’s a door. Yes, look here--the stones
are round like an arch in the wall; and here’s the hole--it’s all black
inside.’
He had walked over to the heap as he spoke and climbed up to
it--dislodged the top stone of the heap and uncovered a little dark
space.
Next moment every one was helping to pull down the heap of stones, and
very soon every one threw off its jacket, for it was warm work.
‘It IS a door,’ said Cyril, wiping his face, ‘and not a bad thing
either, if--’
He was going to add ‘if anything happens to the Phoenix,’ but he didn’t
for fear of frightening Jane. He was not an unkind boy when he had
leisure to think of such things.
The arched hole in the wall grew larger and larger. It was very, very
black, even compared with the sort of twilight at the bottom of the
tower; it grew larger because the children kept pulling off the stones
and throwing them down into another heap. The stones must have been
there a very long time, for they were covered with moss, and some of
them were stuck together by it. So it was fairly hard work, as Robert
pointed out.
When the hole reached to about halfway between the top of the arch
and the tower, Robert and Cyril let themselves down cautiously on the
inside, and lit matches. How thankful they felt then that they had a
sensible father, who did not forbid them to carry matches, as some boys’
fathers do. The father of Robert and Cyril only insisted on the matches
being of the kind that strike only on the box.
‘It’s not a door, it’s a sort of tunnel,’ Robert cried to the girls,
after the first match had flared up, flickered, and gone out. ‘Stand
off--we’ll push some more stones down!’
They did, amid deep excitement. And now the stone heap was almost
gone--and before them the girls saw the dark archway leading to unknown
things. All doubts and fears as to getting home were forgotten in this
thrilling moment. It was like Monte Cristo--it was like--
‘I say,’ cried Anthea, suddenly, ‘come out! There’s always bad air in
places that have been shut up. It makes your torches go out, and then
you die. It’s called fire-damp, I believe. Come out, I tell you.’
The urgency of her tone actually brought the boys out--and then every
one took up its jacket and fanned the dark arch with it, so as to
make the air fresh inside. When Anthea thought the air inside ‘must be
freshened by now,’ Cyril led the way into the arch.
The girls followed, and Robert came last, because Jane refused to tail
the procession lest ‘something’ should come in after her, and catch at
her from behind. Cyril advanced cautiously, lighting match after match,
and peering before him.
‘It’s a vaulting roof,’ he said, ‘and it’s all stone--all right,
Panther, don’t keep pulling at my jacket! The air must be all right
because of the matches, silly, and there are--look out--there are steps
down.’
‘Oh, don’t let’s go any farther,’ said Jane, in an agony of reluctance
(a very painful thing, by the way, to be in). ‘I’m sure there are
snakes, or dens of lions, or something. Do let’s go back, and come some
other time, with candles, and bellows for the fire-damp.’
‘Let me get in front of you, then,’ said the stern voice of Robert, from
behind. ‘This is exactly the place for buried treasure, and I’m going
on, anyway; you can stay behind if you like.’
And then, of course, Jane consented to go on.
So, very slowly and carefully, the children went down the steps--there
were seventeen of them--and at the bottom of the steps were more
passages branching four ways, and a sort of low arch on the right-hand
side made Cyril wonder what it could be, for it was too low to be the
beginning of another passage.
So he knelt down and lit a match, and stooping very low he peeped in.
‘There’s SOMETHING,’ he said, and reached out his hand. It touched
something that felt more like a damp bag of marbles than anything else
that Cyril had ever touched.
‘I believe it IS a buried treasure,’ he cried.
And it was; for even as Anthea cried, ‘Oh, hurry up, Squirrel--fetch it
out!’ Cyril pulled out a rotting canvas bag--about as big as the paper
ones the greengrocer gives you with Barcelona nuts in for sixpence.
‘There’s more of it, a lot more,’ he said.
As he pulled the rotten bag gave way, and the gold coins ran and span
and jumped and bumped and chinked and clinked on the floor of the dark
passage.
I wonder what you would say if you suddenly came upon a buried treasure?
What Cyril said was, ‘Oh, bother--I’ve burnt my fingers!’ and as he
spoke he dropped the match. ‘AND IT WAS THE LAST!’ he added.
There was a moment of desperate silence. Then Jane began to cry.
‘Don’t,’ said Anthea, ‘don’t, Pussy--you’ll exhaust the air if you cry.
We can get out all right.’
‘Yes,’ said Jane, through her sobs, ‘and find the Phoenix has come back
and gone away again--because it thought we’d gone home some other way,
and--Oh, I WISH we hadn’t come.’
Every one stood quite still--only Anthea cuddled Jane up to her and
tried to wipe her eyes in the dark.
‘D-DON’T,’ said Jane; ‘that’s my EAR--I’m not crying with my ears.’
‘Come, let’s get on out,’ said Robert; but that was not so easy, for no
one could remember exactly which way they had come. It is very difficult
to remember things in the dark, unless you have matches with you, and
then of course it is quite different, even if you don’t strike one.
Every one had come to agree with Jane’s constant wish--and despair was
making the darkness blacker than ever, when quite suddenly the floor
seemed to tip up--and a strong sensation of being in a whirling lift
came upon every one. All eyes were closed--one’s eyes always are in the
dark, don’t you think? When the whirling feeling stopped, Cyril said
‘Earthquakes!’ and they all opened their eyes.
They were in their own dingy breakfast-room at home, and oh, how light
and bright and safe and pleasant and altogether delightful it seemed
after that dark underground tunnel! The carpet lay on the floor, looking
as calm as though it had never been for an excursion in its life. On
the mantelpiece stood the Phoenix, waiting with an air of modest yet
sterling worth for the thanks of the children.
‘But how DID you do it?’ they asked, when every one had thanked the
Phoenix again and again.
‘Oh, I just went and got a wish from your friend the Psammead.’
‘But how DID you know where to find it?’
‘I found that out from the carpet; these wishing creatures always know
all about each other--they’re so clannish; like the Scots, you know--all
related.’
‘But, the carpet can’t talk, can it?’
‘No.’
‘Then how--’
‘How did I get the Psammead’s address? I tell you I got it from the
carpet.’
‘DID it speak then?’
‘No,’ said the Phoenix, thoughtfully, ‘it didn’t speak, but I gathered
my information from something in its manner. I was always a singularly
observant bird.’
It was not till after the cold mutton and the jam tart, as well as the
tea and bread-and-butter, that any one found time to regret the golden
treasure which had been left scattered on the floor of the underground
passage, and which, indeed, no one had thought of till now, since the
moment when Cyril burnt his fingers at the flame of the last match.
‘What owls and goats we were!’ said Robert. ‘Look how we’ve always
wanted treasure--and now--’
‘Never mind,’ said Anthea, trying as usual to make the best of it.
‘We’ll go back again and get it all, and then we’ll give everybody
presents.’
More than a quarter of an hour passed most agreeably in arranging what
presents should be given to whom, and, when the claims of generosity had
been satisfied, the talk ran for fifty minutes on what they would buy
for themselves.
It was Cyril who broke in on Robert’s almost too technical account of
the motor-car on which he meant to go to and from school--
‘There!’ he said. ‘Dry up. It’s no good. We can’t ever go back. We don’t
know where it is.’
‘Don’t YOU know?’ Jane asked the Phoenix, wistfully.
‘Not in the least,’ the Phoenix replied, in a tone of amiable regret.
‘Then we’ve lost the treasure,’ said Cyril. And they had.
‘But we’ve got the carpet and the Phoenix,’ said Anthea.
‘Excuse me,’ said the bird, with an air of wounded dignity, ‘I do SO
HATE to seem to interfere, but surely you MUST mean the Phoenix and the
carpet?’
CHAPTER 3. THE QUEEN COOK
It was on a Saturday that the children made their first glorious journey
on the wishing carpet. Unless you are too young to read at all, you will
know that the next day must have been Sunday.
Sunday at 18, Camden Terrace, Camden Town, was always a very pretty
day. Father always brought home flowers on Saturday, so that the
breakfast-table was extra beautiful. In November, of course, the flowers
were chrysanthemums, yellow and coppery coloured. Then there were always
sausages on toast for breakfast, and these are rapture, after six days
of Kentish Town Road eggs at fourteen a shilling.
On this particular Sunday there were fowls for dinner, a kind of food
that is generally kept for birthdays and grand occasions, and there
was an angel pudding, when rice and milk and oranges and white icing do
their best to make you happy.
After dinner father was very sleepy indeed, because he had been working
hard all the week; but he did not yield to the voice that said, ‘Go and
have an hour’s rest.’ He nursed the Lamb, who had a horrid cough that
cook said was whooping-cough as sure as eggs, and he said--
‘Come along, kiddies; I’ve got a ripping book from the library, called
The Golden Age, and I’ll read it to you.’
Mother settled herself on the drawing-room sofa, and said she could
listen quite nicely with her eyes shut. The Lamb snugged into the
‘armchair corner’ of daddy’s arm, and the others got into a happy heap
on the hearth-rug. At first, of course, there were too many feet and
knees and shoulders and elbows, but real comfort was actually settling
down on them, and the Phoenix and the carpet were put away on the back
top shelf of their minds (beautiful things that could be taken out and
played with later), when a surly solid knock came at the drawing-room
door. It opened an angry inch, and the cook’s voice said, ‘Please, m’,
may I speak to you a moment?’
Mother looked at father with a desperate expression. Then she put her
pretty sparkly Sunday shoes down from the sofa, and stood up in them and
sighed.
‘As good fish in the sea,’ said father, cheerfully, and it was not till
much later that the children understood what he meant.
Mother went out into the passage, which is called ‘the hall’, where the
umbrella-stand is, and the picture of the ‘Monarch of the Glen’ in a
yellow shining frame, with brown spots on the Monarch from the damp
in the house before last, and there was cook, very red and damp in the
face, and with a clean apron tied on all crooked over the dirty one that
she had dished up those dear delightful chickens in. She stood there and
she seemed to get redder and damper, and she twisted the corner of her
apron round her fingers, and she said very shortly and fiercely--
‘If you please ma’am, I should wish to leave at my day month.’ Mother
leaned against the hatstand. The children could see her looking pale
through the crack of the door, because she had been very kind to the
cook, and had given her a holiday only the day before, and it seemed so
very unkind of the cook to want to go like this, and on a Sunday too.
‘Why, what’s the matter?’ mother said.
‘It’s them children,’ the cook replied, and somehow the children all
felt that they had known it from the first. They did not remember having
done anything extra wrong, but it is so frightfully easy to displease a
cook. ‘It’s them children: there’s that there new carpet in their room,
covered thick with mud, both sides, beastly yellow mud, and sakes alive
knows where they got it. And all that muck to clean up on a Sunday! It’s
not my place, and it’s not my intentions, so I don’t deceive you, ma’am,
and but for them limbs, which they is if ever there was, it’s not a bad
place, though I says it, and I wouldn’t wish to leave, but--’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said mother, gently. ‘I will speak to the children.
And you had better think it over, and if you REALLY wish to go, tell me
to-morrow.’
Next day mother had a quiet talk with cook, and cook said she didn’t
mind if she stayed on a bit, just to see.
But meantime the question of the muddy carpet had been gone into
thoroughly by father and mother. Jane’s candid explanation that the
mud had come from the bottom of a foreign tower where there was buried
treasure was received with such chilling disbelief that the others
limited their defence to an expression of sorrow, and of a determination
‘not to do it again’. But father said (and mother agreed with him,
because mothers have to agree with fathers, and not because it was her
own idea) that children who coated a carpet on both sides with thick
mud, and when they were asked for an explanation could only talk silly
nonsense--that meant Jane’s truthful statement--were not fit to have a
carpet at all, and, indeed, SHOULDN’T have one for a week!
So the carpet was brushed (with tea-leaves, too) which was the only
comfort Anthea could think of, and folded up and put away in the
cupboard at the top of the stairs, and daddy put the key in his trousers
pocket. ‘Till Saturday,’ said he.
‘Never mind,’ said Anthea, ‘we’ve got the Phoenix.’
But, as it happened, they hadn’t. The Phoenix was nowhere to be found,
and everything had suddenly settled down from the rosy wild beauty of
magic happenings to the common damp brownness of ordinary November life
in Camden Town--and there was the nursery floor all bare boards in
the middle and brown oilcloth round the outside, and the bareness and
yellowness of the middle floor showed up the blackbeetles with terrible
distinctness, when the poor things came out in the evening, as usual, to
try to make friends with the children. But the children never would.
The Sunday ended in gloom, which even junket for supper in the blue
Dresden bowl could hardly lighten at all. Next day the Lamb’s cough
was worse. It certainly seemed very whoopy, and the doctor came in his
brougham carriage.
Every one tried to bear up under the weight of the sorrow which it was
to know that the wishing carpet was locked up and the Phoenix mislaid. A
good deal of time was spent in looking for the Phoenix.
‘It’s a bird of its word,’ said Anthea. ‘I’m sure it’s not deserted us.
But you know it had a most awfully long fly from wherever it was to near
Rochester and back, and I expect the poor thing’s feeling tired out and
wants rest. I am sure we may trust it.’
The others tried to feel sure of this, too, but it was hard.
No one could be expected to feel very kindly towards the cook, since it
was entirely through her making such a fuss about a little foreign mud
that the carpet had been taken away.
‘She might have told us,’ said Jane, ‘and Panther and I would have
cleaned it with tea-leaves.’
‘She’s a cantankerous cat,’ said Robert.
‘I shan’t say what I think about her,’ said Anthea, primly, ‘because it
would be evil speaking, lying, and slandering.’
‘It’s not lying to say she’s a disagreeable pig, and a beastly
blue-nosed Bozwoz,’ said Cyril, who had read The Eyes of Light, and
intended to talk like Tony as soon as he could teach Robert to talk like
Paul.
And all the children, even Anthea, agreed that even if she wasn’t a
blue-nosed Bozwoz, they wished cook had never been born.
But I ask you to believe that they didn’t do all the things on purpose
which so annoyed the cook during the following week, though I daresay
the things would not have happened if the cook had been a favourite.
This is a mystery. Explain it if you can. The things that had happened
were as follows:
Sunday.--Discovery of foreign mud on both sides of the carpet.
Monday.--Liquorice put on to boil with aniseed balls in a saucepan.
Anthea did this, because she thought it would be good for the Lamb’s
cough. The whole thing forgotten, and bottom of saucepan burned out. It
was the little saucepan lined with white that was kept for the baby’s
milk.
Tuesday.--A dead mouse found in pantry. Fish-slice taken to dig grave
with. By regrettable accident fish-slice broken. Defence: ‘The cook
oughtn’t to keep dead mice in pantries.’
Wednesday.--Chopped suet left on kitchen table. Robert added chopped
soap, but he says he thought the suet was soap too.
Thursday.--Broke the kitchen window by falling against it during a
perfectly fair game of bandits in the area.
Friday.--Stopped up grating of kitchen sink with putty and filled sink
with water to make a lake to sail paper boats in. Went away and left the
tap running. Kitchen hearthrug and cook’s shoes ruined.
On Saturday the carpet was restored. There had been plenty of time
during the week to decide where it should be asked to go when they did
get it back.
Mother had gone over to granny’s, and had not taken the Lamb because he
had a bad cough, which, cook repeatedly said, was whooping-cough as sure
as eggs is eggs.
‘But we’ll take him out, a ducky darling,’ said Anthea. ‘We’ll take
him somewhere where you can’t have whooping-cough. Don’t be so silly,
Robert. If he DOES talk about it no one’ll take any notice. He’s always
talking about things he’s never seen.’
So they dressed the Lamb and themselves in out-of-doors clothes, and the
Lamb chuckled and coughed, and laughed and coughed again, poor dear, and
all the chairs and tables were moved off the carpet by the boys, while
Jane nursed the Lamb, and Anthea rushed through the house in one last
wild hunt for the missing Phoenix.
‘It’s no use waiting for it,’ she said, reappearing breathless in the
breakfast-room. ‘But I know it hasn’t deserted us. It’s a bird of its
word.’
‘Quite so,’ said the gentle voice of the Phoenix from beneath the table.
Every one fell on its knees and looked up, and there was the Phoenix
perched on a crossbar of wood that ran across under the table, and had
once supported a drawer, in the happy days before the drawer had been
used as a boat, and its bottom unfortunately trodden out by Raggett’s
Really Reliable School Boots on the feet of Robert.
‘I’ve been here all the time,’ said the Phoenix, yawning politely
behind its claw. ‘If you wanted me you should have recited the ode of
invocation; it’s seven thousand lines long, and written in very pure and
beautiful Greek.’
‘Couldn’t you tell it us in English?’ asked Anthea.
‘It’s rather long, isn’t it?’ said Jane, jumping the Lamb on her knee.
‘Couldn’t you make a short English version, like Tate and Brady?’
‘Oh, come along, do,’ said Robert, holding out his hand. ‘Come along,
good old Phoenix.’
‘Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix,’ it corrected shyly.
‘Good old BEAUTIFUL Phoenix, then. Come along, come along,’ said Robert,
impatiently, with his hand still held out.
The Phoenix fluttered at once on to his wrist.
‘This amiable youth,’ it said to the others, ‘has miraculously been able
to put the whole meaning of the seven thousand lines of Greek invocation
into one English hexameter--a little misplaced some of the words--but--
‘Oh, come along, come along, good old beautiful Phoenix!’
‘Not perfect, I admit--but not bad for a boy of his age.’
‘Well, now then,’ said Robert, stepping back on to the carpet with the
golden Phoenix on his wrist.
‘You look like the king’s falconer,’ said Jane, sitting down on the
carpet with the baby on her lap.
Robert tried to go on looking like it. Cyril and Anthea stood on the
carpet.
‘We shall have to get back before dinner,’ said Cyril, ‘or cook will
blow the gaff.’
‘She hasn’t sneaked since Sunday,’ said Anthea.
‘She--’ Robert was beginning, when the door burst open and the cook,
fierce and furious, came in like a whirlwind and stood on the corner of
the carpet, with a broken basin in one hand and a threat in the other,
which was clenched.
‘Look ‘ere!’ she cried, ‘my only basin; and what the powers am I to
make the beefsteak and kidney pudding in that your ma ordered for your
dinners? You don’t deserve no dinners, so yer don’t.’
‘I’m awfully sorry, cook,’ said Anthea gently; ‘it was my fault, and
I forgot to tell you about it. It got broken when we were telling our
fortunes with melted lead, you know, and I meant to tell you.’
‘Meant to tell me,’ replied the cook; she was red with anger, and really
I don’t wonder--‘meant to tell! Well, _I_ mean to tell, too. I’ve held
my tongue this week through, because the missus she said to me quiet
like, “We mustn’t expect old heads on young shoulders,” but now I shan’t
hold it no longer. There was the soap you put in our pudding, and me and
Eliza never so much as breathed it to your ma--though well we might--and
the saucepan, and the fish-slice, and--My gracious cats alive! what ‘ave
you got that blessed child dressed up in his outdoors for?’
‘We aren’t going to take him out,’ said Anthea; ‘at least--’ She stopped
short, for though they weren’t going to take him out in the Kentish
Town Road, they certainly intended to take him elsewhere. But not at all
where cook meant when she said ‘out’. This confused the truthful Anthea.
‘Out!’ said the cook, ‘that I’ll take care you don’t;’ and she snatched
the Lamb from the lap of Jane, while Anthea and Robert caught her by the
skirts and apron. ‘Look here,’ said Cyril, in stern desperation, ‘will
you go away, and make your pudding in a pie-dish, or a flower-pot, or a
hot-water can, or something?’
‘Not me,’ said the cook, briefly; ‘and leave this precious poppet for
you to give his deathercold to.’
‘I warn you,’ said Cyril, solemnly. ‘Beware, ere yet it be too late.’
‘Late yourself the little popsey-wopsey,’ said the cook, with angry
tenderness. ‘They shan’t take it out, no more they shan’t. And--Where
did you get that there yellow fowl?’ She pointed to the Phoenix.
Even Anthea saw that unless the cook lost her situation the loss would
be theirs.
‘I wish,’ she said suddenly, ‘we were on a sunny southern shore, where
there can’t be any whooping-cough.’
She said it through the frightened howls of the Lamb, and the sturdy
scoldings of the cook, and instantly the giddy-go-round-and-falling-lift
feeling swept over the whole party, and the cook sat down flat on the
carpet, holding the screaming Lamb tight to her stout print-covered
self, and calling on St Bridget to help her. She was an Irishwoman.
The moment the tipsy-topsy-turvy feeling stopped, the cook opened her
eyes, gave one sounding screech and shut them again, and Anthea took the
opportunity to get the desperately howling Lamb into her own arms.
‘It’s all right,’ she said; ‘own Panther’s got you. Look at the trees,
and the sand, and the shells, and the great big tortoises. Oh DEAR, how
hot it is!’
It certainly was; for the trusty carpet had laid itself out on a
southern shore that was sunny and no mistake, as Robert remarked. The
greenest of green slopes led up to glorious groves where palm-trees and
all the tropical flowers and fruits that you read of in Westward Ho! and
Fair Play were growing in rich profusion. Between the green, green slope
and the blue, blue sea lay a stretch of sand that looked like a carpet
of jewelled cloth of gold, for it was not greyish as our northern sand
is, but yellow and changing--opal-coloured like sunshine and rainbows.
And at the very moment when the wild, whirling, blinding, deafening,
tumbling upside-downness of the carpet-moving stopped, the children had
the happiness of seeing three large live turtles waddle down to the edge
of the sea and disappear in the water. And it was hotter than you can
possibly imagine, unless you think of ovens on a baking-day.
Every one without an instant’s hesitation tore off its
London-in-November outdoor clothes, and Anthea took off the Lamb’s
highwayman blue coat and his three-cornered hat, and then his jersey,
and then the Lamb himself suddenly slipped out of his little blue tight
breeches and stood up happy and hot in his little white shirt.
‘I’m sure it’s much warmer than the seaside in the summer,’ said Anthea.
‘Mother always lets us go barefoot then.’
So the Lamb’s shoes and socks and gaiters came off, and he stood digging
his happy naked pink toes into the golden smooth sand.
‘I’m a little white duck-dickie,’ said he--‘a little white duck-dickie
what swims,’ and splashed quacking into a sandy pool.
‘Let him,’ said Anthea; ‘it can’t hurt him. Oh, how hot it is!’
The cook suddenly opened her eyes and screamed, shut them, screamed
again, opened her eyes once more and said--
‘Why, drat my cats alive, what’s all this? It’s a dream, I expect.
Well, it’s the best I ever dreamed. I’ll look it up in the dream-book
to-morrow. Seaside and trees and a carpet to sit on. I never did!’
‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘it isn’t a dream; it’s real.’
‘Ho yes!’ said the cook; ‘they always says that in dreams.’
‘It’s REAL, I tell you,’ Robert said, stamping his foot. ‘I’m not going
to tell you how it’s done, because that’s our secret.’ He winked heavily
at each of the others in turn. ‘But you wouldn’t go away and make that
pudding, so we HAD to bring you, and I hope you like it.’
‘I do that, and no mistake,’ said the cook unexpectedly; ‘and it being a
dream it don’t matter what I say; and I WILL say, if it’s my last word,
that of all the aggravating little varmints--’ ‘Calm yourself, my good
woman,’ said the Phoenix.
‘Good woman, indeed,’ said the cook; ‘good woman yourself’ Then she
saw who it was that had spoken. ‘Well, if I ever,’ said she; ‘this is
something like a dream! Yellow fowls a-talking and all! I’ve heard of
such, but never did I think to see the day.’
‘Well, then,’ said Cyril, impatiently, ‘sit here and see the day now.
It’s a jolly fine day. Here, you others--a council!’ They walked along
the shore till they were out of earshot of the cook, who still sat
gazing about her with a happy, dreamy, vacant smile.
‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘we must roll the carpet up and hide it, so
that we can get at it at any moment. The Lamb can be getting rid of
his whooping-cough all the morning, and we can look about; and if the
savages on this island are cannibals, we’ll hook it, and take her back.
And if not, we’ll LEAVE HER HERE.’
‘Is that being kind to servants and animals, like the clergyman said?’
asked Jane.
‘Nor she isn’t kind,’ retorted Cyril.
‘Well--anyway,’ said Anthea, ‘the safest thing is to leave the carpet
there with her sitting on it. Perhaps it’ll be a lesson to her, and
anyway, if she thinks it’s a dream it won’t matter what she says when
she gets home.’
So the extra coats and hats and mufflers were piled on the carpet. Cyril
shouldered the well and happy Lamb, the Phoenix perched on Robert’s
wrist, and ‘the party of explorers prepared to enter the interior’.
The grassy slope was smooth, but under the trees there were tangled
creepers with bright, strange-shaped flowers, and it was not easy to
walk.
‘We ought to have an explorer’s axe,’ said Robert. ‘I shall ask father
to give me one for Christmas.’
There were curtains of creepers with scented blossoms hanging from the
trees, and brilliant birds darted about quite close to their faces.
‘Now, tell me honestly,’ said the Phoenix, ‘are there any birds here
handsomer than I am? Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings--I’m a
modest bird, I hope.’
‘Not one of them,’ said Robert, with conviction, ‘is a patch upon you!’
‘I was never a vain bird,’ said the Phoenix, ‘but I own that you confirm
my own impression. I will take a flight.’ It circled in the air for a
moment, and, returning to Robert’s wrist, went on, ‘There is a path to
the left.’
And there was. So now the children went on through the wood more quickly
and comfortably, the girls picking flowers and the Lamb inviting
the ‘pretty dickies’ to observe that he himself was a ‘little white
real-water-wet duck!’
And all this time he hadn’t whooping-coughed once.
The path turned and twisted, and, always threading their way amid a
tangle of flowers, the children suddenly passed a corner and found
themselves in a forest clearing, where there were a lot of pointed
huts--the huts, as they knew at once, of SAVAGES.
The boldest heart beat more quickly. Suppose they WERE cannibals. It was
a long way back to the carpet.
‘Hadn’t we better go back?’ said Jane. ‘Go NOW,’ she said, and her voice
trembled a little. ‘Suppose they eat us.’
‘Nonsense, Pussy,’ said Cyril, firmly. ‘Look, there’s a goat tied up.
That shows they don’t eat PEOPLE.’
‘Let’s go on and say we’re missionaries,’ Robert suggested.
‘I shouldn’t advise THAT,’ said the Phoenix, very earnestly.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, for one thing, it isn’t true,’ replied the golden bird.
It was while they stood hesitating on the edge of the clearing that
a tall man suddenly came out of one of the huts. He had hardly any
clothes, and his body all over was a dark and beautiful coppery
colour--just like the chrysanthemums father had brought home on
Saturday. In his hand he held a spear. The whites of his eyes and the
white of his teeth were the only light things about him, except that
where the sun shone on his shiny brown body it looked white, too. If
you will look carefully at the next shiny savage you meet with next to
nothing on, you will see at once--if the sun happens to be shining at
the time--that I am right about this.
The savage looked at the children. Concealment was impossible. He
uttered a shout that was more like ‘Oo goggery bag-wag’ than anything
else the children had ever heard, and at once brown coppery people leapt
out of every hut, and swarmed like ants about the clearing. There was
no time for discussion, and no one wanted to discuss anything, anyhow.
Whether these coppery people were cannibals or not now seemed to matter
very little.
Without an instant’s hesitation the four children turned and ran back
along the forest path; the only pause was Anthea’s. She stood back to
let Cyril pass, because he was carrying the Lamb, who screamed with
delight. (He had not whooping-coughed a single once since the carpet
landed him on the island.)
‘Gee-up, Squirrel; gee-gee,’ he shouted, and Cyril did gee-up. The path
was a shorter cut to the beach than the creeper-covered way by which
they had come, and almost directly they saw through the trees the
shining blue-and-gold-and-opal of sand and sea.
‘Stick to it,’ cried Cyril, breathlessly.
They did stick to it; they tore down the sands--they could hear behind
them as they ran the patter of feet which they knew, too well, were
copper-coloured.
The sands were golden and opal-coloured--and BARE. There were wreaths of
tropic seaweed, there were rich tropic shells of the kind you would not
buy in the Kentish Town Road under at least fifteen pence a pair.
There were turtles basking lumpily on the water’s edge--but no cook, no
clothes, and no carpet.
‘On, on! Into the sea!’ gasped Cyril. ‘They MUST hate water.
I’ve--heard--savages always--dirty.’
Their feet were splashing in the warm shallows before his breathless
words were ended. The calm baby-waves were easy to go through. It is
warm work running for your life in the tropics, and the coolness of the
water was delicious. They were up to their arm-pits now, and Jane was up
to her chin.
‘Look!’ said the Phoenix. ‘What are they pointing at?’
The children turned; and there, a little to the west was a head--a head
they knew, with a crooked cap upon it. It was the head of the cook.
For some reason or other the savages had stopped at the water’s edge
and were all talking at the top of their voices, and all were pointing
copper-coloured fingers, stiff with interest and excitement, at the head
of the cook.
The children hurried towards her as quickly as the water would let them.
‘What on earth did you come out here for?’ Robert shouted; ‘and where on
earth’s the carpet?’
‘It’s not on earth, bless you,’ replied the cook, happily; ‘it’s UNDER
ME--in the water. I got a bit warm setting there in the sun, and I just
says, “I wish I was in a cold bath”--just like that--and next minute
here I was! It’s all part of the dream.’
Every one at once saw how extremely fortunate it was that the carpet had
had the sense to take the cook to the nearest and largest bath--the sea,
and how terrible it would have been if the carpet had taken itself and
her to the stuffy little bath-room of the house in Camden Town!
‘Excuse me,’ said the Phoenix’s soft voice, breaking in on the general
sigh of relief, ‘but I think these brown people want your cook.’
‘To--to eat?’ whispered Jane, as well as she could through the water
which the plunging Lamb was dashing in her face with happy fat hands and
feet.
‘Hardly,’ rejoined the bird. ‘Who wants cooks to EAT? Cooks are ENGAGED,
not eaten. They wish to engage her.’
‘How can you understand what they say?’ asked Cyril, doubtfully.
‘It’s as easy as kissing your claw,’ replied the bird. ‘I speak and
understand ALL languages, even that of your cook, which is difficult and
unpleasing. It’s quite easy, when you know how it’s done. It just comes
to you. I should advise you to beach the carpet and land the cargo--the
cook, I mean. You can take my word for it, the copper-coloured ones will
not harm you now.’
It is impossible not to take the word of a Phoenix when it tells you
to. So the children at once got hold of the corners of the carpet,
and, pulling it from under the cook, towed it slowly in through the
shallowing water, and at last spread it on the sand. The cook, who had
followed, instantly sat down on it, and at once the copper-coloured
natives, now strangely humble, formed a ring round the carpet, and fell
on their faces on the rainbow-and-gold sand. The tallest savage spoke
in this position, which must have been very awkward for him; and Jane
noticed that it took him quite a long time to get the sand out of his
mouth afterwards.
‘He says,’ the Phoenix remarked after some time, ‘that they wish to
engage your cook permanently.’
‘Without a character?’ asked Anthea, who had heard her mother speak of
such things.
‘They do not wish to engage her as cook, but as queen; and queens need
not have characters.’
There was a breathless pause.
‘WELL,’ said Cyril, ‘of all the choices! But there’s no accounting for
tastes.’
Every one laughed at the idea of the cook’s being engaged as queen; they
could not help it.
‘I do not advise laughter,’ warned the Phoenix, ruffling out his golden
feathers, which were extremely wet. ‘And it’s not their own choice. It
seems that there is an ancient prophecy of this copper-coloured tribe
that a great queen should some day arise out of the sea with a white
crown on her head, and--and--well, you see! There’s the crown!’
It pointed its claw at cook’s cap; and a very dirty cap it was, because
it was the end of the week.
‘That’s the white crown,’ it said; ‘at least, it’s nearly white--very
white indeed compared to the colour THEY are--and anyway, it’s quite
white enough.’
Cyril addressed the cook. ‘Look here!’ said he, ‘these brown people want
you to be their queen. They’re only savages, and they don’t know any
better. Now would you really like to stay? or, if you’ll promise not to
be so jolly aggravating at home, and not to tell any one a word about
to-day, we’ll take you back to Camden Town.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said the cook, in firm, undoubting tones. ‘I’ve always
wanted to be the Queen, God bless her! and I always thought what a good
one I should make; and now I’m going to. IF it’s only in a dream, it’s
well worth while. And I don’t go back to that nasty underground kitchen,
and me blamed for everything; that I don’t, not till the dream’s
finished and I wake up with that nasty bell a rang-tanging in my
ears--so I tell you.’
‘Are you SURE,’ Anthea anxiously asked the Phoenix, ‘that she will be
quite safe here?’
‘She will find the nest of a queen a very precious and soft thing,’ said
the bird, solemnly.
‘There--you hear,’ said Cyril. ‘You’re in for a precious soft thing,
so mind you’re a good queen, cook. It’s more than you’d any right to
expect, but long may you reign.’
Some of the cook’s copper-coloured subjects now advanced from the forest
with long garlands of beautiful flowers, white and sweet-scented, and
hung them respectfully round the neck of their new sovereign.
‘What! all them lovely bokays for me!’ exclaimed the enraptured cook.
‘Well, this here is something LIKE a dream, I must say.’
She sat up very straight on the carpet, and the copper-coloured ones,
themselves wreathed in garlands of the gayest flowers, madly stuck
parrot feathers in their hair and began to dance. It was a dance such as
you have never seen; it made the children feel almost sure that the
cook was right, and that they were all in a dream. Small, strange-shaped
drums were beaten, odd-sounding songs were sung, and the dance got
faster and faster and odder and odder, till at last all the dancers fell
on the sand tired out.
The new queen, with her white crown-cap all on one side, clapped wildly.
‘Brayvo!’ she cried, ‘brayvo! It’s better than the Albert Edward
Music-hall in the Kentish Town Road. Go it again!’
But the Phoenix would not translate this request into the
copper-coloured language; and when the savages had recovered their
breath, they implored their queen to leave her white escort and come
with them to their huts.
‘The finest shall be yours, O queen,’ said they.
‘Well--so long!’ said the cook, getting heavily on to her feet, when the
Phoenix had translated this request. ‘No more kitchens and attics for
me, thank you. I’m off to my royal palace, I am; and I only wish this
here dream would keep on for ever and ever.’
She picked up the ends of the garlands that trailed round her feet,
and the children had one last glimpse of her striped stockings and worn
elastic-side boots before she disappeared into the shadow of the forest,
surrounded by her dusky retainers, singing songs of rejoicing as they
went.
‘WELL!’ said Cyril, ‘I suppose she’s all right, but they don’t seem to
count us for much, one way or the other.’
‘Oh,’ said the Phoenix, ‘they think you’re merely dreams. The prophecy
said that the queen would arise from the waves with a white crown and
surrounded by white dream-children. That’s about what they think YOU
are!’
‘And what about dinner?’ said Robert, abruptly.
‘There won’t be any dinner, with no cook and no pudding-basin,’ Anthea
reminded him; ‘but there’s always bread-and-butter.’
‘Let’s get home,’ said Cyril.
The Lamb was furiously unwishful to be dressed in his warm clothes
again, but Anthea and Jane managed it, by force disguised as coaxing,
and he never once whooping-coughed.
Then every one put on its own warm things and took its place on the
carpet.
A sound of uncouth singing still came from beyond the trees where the
copper-coloured natives were crooning songs of admiration and respect
to their white-crowned queen. Then Anthea said ‘Home,’ just as duchesses
and other people do to their coachmen, and the intelligent carpet in
one whirling moment laid itself down in its proper place on the nursery
floor. And at that very moment Eliza opened the door and said--
‘Cook’s gone! I can’t find her anywhere, and there’s no dinner ready.
She hasn’t taken her box nor yet her outdoor things. She just ran out to
see the time, I shouldn’t wonder--the kitchen clock never did give her
satisfaction--and she’s got run over or fell down in a fit as likely
as not. You’ll have to put up with the cold bacon for your dinners; and
what on earth you’ve got your outdoor things on for I don’t know.
And then I’ll slip out and see if they know anything about her at the
police-station.’
But nobody ever knew anything about the cook any more, except the
children, and, later, one other person.
Mother was so upset at losing the cook, and so anxious about her, that
Anthea felt most miserable, as though she had done something very wrong
indeed. She woke several times in the night, and at last decided that
she would ask the Phoenix to let her tell her mother all about it. But
there was no opportunity to do this next day, because the Phoenix, as
usual, had gone to sleep in some out-of-the-way spot, after asking, as a
special favour, not to be disturbed for twenty-four hours.
The Lamb never whooping-coughed once all that Sunday, and mother and
father said what good medicine it was that the doctor had given him. But
the children knew that it was the southern shore where you can’t have
whooping-cough that had cured him. The Lamb babbled of coloured sand
and water, but no one took any notice of that. He often talked of things
that hadn’t happened.
It was on Monday morning, very early indeed, that Anthea woke and
suddenly made up her mind. She crept downstairs in her night-gown (it
was very chilly), sat down on the carpet, and with a beating heart
wished herself on the sunny shore where you can’t have whooping-cough,
and next moment there she was.
The sand was splendidly warm. She could feel it at once, even through
the carpet. She folded the carpet, and put it over her shoulders like
a shawl, for she was determined not to be parted from it for a single
instant, no matter how hot it might be to wear.
Then trembling a little, and trying to keep up her courage by saying
over and over, ‘It is my DUTY, it IS my duty,’ she went up the forest
path.
‘Well, here you are again,’ said the cook, directly she saw Anthea.
‘This dream does keep on!’
The cook was dressed in a white robe; she had no shoes and stockings
and no cap and she was sitting under a screen of palm-leaves, for it was
afternoon in the island, and blazing hot. She wore a flower wreath
on her hair, and copper-coloured boys were fanning her with peacock’s
feathers.
‘They’ve got the cap put away,’ she said. ‘They seem to think a lot of
it. Never saw one before, I expect.’
‘Are you happy?’ asked Anthea, panting; the sight of the cook as queen
quite took her breath away.
‘I believe you, my dear,’ said the cook, heartily. ‘Nothing to do unless
you want to. But I’m getting rested now. Tomorrow I’m going to start
cleaning out my hut, if the dream keeps on, and I shall teach them
cooking; they burns everything to a cinder now unless they eats it raw.’
‘But can you talk to them?’
‘Lor’ love a duck, yes!’ the happy cook-queen replied; ‘it’s quite easy
to pick up. I always thought I should be quick at foreign languages.
I’ve taught them to understand “dinner,” and “I want a drink,” and “You
leave me be,” already.’
‘Then you don’t want anything?’ Anthea asked earnestly and anxiously.
‘Not me, miss; except if you’d only go away. I’m afraid of me waking
up with that bell a-going if you keep on stopping here a-talking to me.
Long as this here dream keeps up I’m as happy as a queen.’
‘Goodbye, then,’ said Anthea, gaily, for her conscience was clear now.
She hurried into the wood, threw herself on the ground, and said
‘Home’--and there she was, rolled in the carpet on the nursery floor.
‘SHE’S all right, anyhow,’ said Anthea, and went back to bed. ‘I’m glad
somebody’s pleased. But mother will never believe me when I tell her.’
The story is indeed a little difficult to believe. Still, you might try.
CHAPTER 4. TWO BAZAARS
Mother was really a great dear. She was pretty and she was loving, and
most frightfully good when you were ill, and always kind, and almost
always just. That is, she was just when she understood things. But
of course she did not always understand things. No one understands
everything, and mothers are not angels, though a good many of them come
pretty near it. The children knew that mother always WANTED to do what
was best for them, even if she was not clever enough to know exactly
what was the best. That was why all of them, but much more particularly
Anthea, felt rather uncomfortable at keeping the great secret from her
of the wishing carpet and the Phoenix. And Anthea, whose inside mind was
made so that she was able to be much more uncomfortable than the others,
had decided that she MUST tell her mother the truth, however little
likely it was that her mother would believe it.
‘Then I shall have done what’s right,’ said she to the Phoenix; ‘and if
she doesn’t believe me it won’t be my fault--will it?’
‘Not in the least,’ said the golden bird. ‘And she won’t, so you’re
quite safe.’
Anthea chose a time when she was doing her home-lessons--they were
Algebra and Latin, German, English, and Euclid--and she asked her mother
whether she might come and do them in the drawing-room--‘so as to be
quiet,’ she said to her mother; and to herself she said, ‘And that’s not
the real reason. I hope I shan’t grow up a LIAR.’
Mother said, ‘Of course, dearie,’ and Anthea started swimming through
a sea of x’s and y’s and z’s. Mother was sitting at the mahogany bureau
writing letters.
‘Mother dear,’ said Anthea.
‘Yes, love-a-duck,’ said mother.
‘About cook,’ said Anthea. ‘_I_ know where she is.’
‘Do you, dear?’ said mother. ‘Well, I wouldn’t take her back after the
way she has behaved.’
‘It’s not her fault,’ said Anthea. ‘May I tell you about it from the
beginning?’
Mother laid down her pen, and her nice face had a resigned expression.
As you know, a resigned expression always makes you want not to tell
anybody anything.
‘It’s like this,’ said Anthea, in a hurry: ‘that egg, you know, that
came in the carpet; we put it in the fire and it hatched into the
Phoenix, and the carpet was a wishing carpet--and--’
‘A very nice game, darling,’ said mother, taking up her pen. ‘Now do
be quiet. I’ve got a lot of letters to write. I’m going to Bournemouth
to-morrow with the Lamb--and there’s that bazaar.’
Anthea went back to x y z, and mother’s pen scratched busily.
‘But, mother,’ said Anthea, when mother put down the pen to lick an
envelope, ‘the carpet takes us wherever we like--and--’
‘I wish it would take you where you could get a few nice Eastern things
for my bazaar,’ said mother. ‘I promised them, and I’ve no time to go to
Liberty’s now.’
‘It shall,’ said Anthea, ‘but, mother--’
‘Well, dear,’ said mother, a little impatiently, for she had taken up
her pen again.
‘The carpet took us to a place where you couldn’t have whooping-cough,
and the Lamb hasn’t whooped since, and we took cook because she was
so tiresome, and then she would stay and be queen of the savages. They
thought her cap was a crown, and--’
‘Darling one,’ said mother, ‘you know I love to hear the things you make
up--but I am most awfully busy.’
‘But it’s true,’ said Anthea, desperately.
‘You shouldn’t say that, my sweet,’ said mother, gently. And then Anthea
knew it was hopeless.
‘Are you going away for long?’ asked Anthea.
‘I’ve got a cold,’ said mother, ‘and daddy’s anxious about it, and the
Lamb’s cough.’
‘He hasn’t coughed since Saturday,’ the Lamb’s eldest sister
interrupted.
‘I wish I could think so,’ mother replied. ‘And daddy’s got to go to
Scotland. I do hope you’ll be good children.’
‘We will, we will,’ said Anthea, fervently. ‘When’s the bazaar?’
‘On Saturday,’ said mother, ‘at the schools. Oh, don’t talk any more,
there’s a treasure! My head’s going round, and I’ve forgotten how to
spell whooping-cough.’
Mother and the Lamb went away, and father went away, and there was a new
cook who looked so like a frightened rabbit that no one had the heart to
do anything to frighten her any more than seemed natural to her.
The Phoenix begged to be excused. It said it wanted a week’s rest, and
asked that it might not be disturbed. And it hid its golden gleaming
self, and nobody could find it.
So that when Wednesday afternoon brought an unexpected holiday, and
every one decided to go somewhere on the carpet, the journey had to
be undertaken without the Phoenix. They were debarred from any carpet
excursions in the evening by a sudden promise to mother, exacted in the
agitation of parting, that they would not be out after six at night,
except on Saturday, when they were to go to the bazaar, and were pledged
to put on their best clothes, to wash themselves to the uttermost, and
to clean their nails--not with scissors, which are scratchy and bad,
but with flat-sharpened ends of wooden matches, which do no harm to any
one’s nails.
‘Let’s go and see the Lamb,’ said Jane.
But every one was agreed that if they appeared suddenly in Bournemouth
it would frighten mother out of her wits, if not into a fit. So they
sat on the carpet, and thought and thought and thought till they almost
began to squint.
‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘I know. Please carpet, take us somewhere where
we can see the Lamb and mother and no one can see us.’
‘Except the Lamb,’ said Jane, quickly.
And the next moment they found themselves recovering from the
upside-down movement--and there they were sitting on the carpet, and
the carpet was laid out over another thick soft carpet of brown
pine-needles. There were green pine-trees overhead, and a swift clear
little stream was running as fast as ever it could between steep
banks--and there, sitting on the pine-needle carpet, was mother, without
her hat; and the sun was shining brightly, although it was November--and
there was the Lamb, as jolly as jolly and not whooping at all.
‘The carpet’s deceived us,’ said Robert, gloomily; ‘mother will see us
directly she turns her head.’
But the faithful carpet had not deceived them.
Mother turned her dear head and looked straight at them, and DID NOT SEE
THEM!
‘We’re invisible,’ Cyril whispered: ‘what awful larks!’
But to the girls it was not larks at all. It was horrible to have mother
looking straight at them, and her face keeping the same, just as though
they weren’t there.
‘I don’t like it,’ said Jane. ‘Mother never looked at us like that
before. Just as if she didn’t love us--as if we were somebody else’s
children, and not very nice ones either--as if she didn’t care whether
she saw us or not.’
‘It is horrid,’ said Anthea, almost in tears.
But at this moment the Lamb saw them, and plunged towards the carpet,
shrieking, ‘Panty, own Panty--an’ Pussy, an’ Squiggle--an’ Bobs, oh,
oh!’
Anthea caught him and kissed him, so did Jane; they could not help
it--he looked such a darling, with his blue three-cornered hat all on
one side, and his precious face all dirty--quite in the old familiar
way.
‘I love you, Panty; I love you--and you, and you, and you,’ cried the
Lamb.
It was a delicious moment. Even the boys thumped their baby brother
joyously on the back.
Then Anthea glanced at mother--and mother’s face was a pale sea-green
colour, and she was staring at the Lamb as if she thought he had gone
mad. And, indeed, that was exactly what she did think.
‘My Lamb, my precious! Come to mother,’ she cried, and jumped up and ran
to the baby.
She was so quick that the invisible children had to leap back, or she
would have felt them; and to feel what you can’t see is the worst sort
of ghost-feeling. Mother picked up the Lamb and hurried away from the
pinewood.
‘Let’s go home,’ said Jane, after a miserable silence. ‘It feels just
exactly as if mother didn’t love us.’
But they couldn’t bear to go home till they had seen mother meet another
lady, and knew that she was safe. You cannot leave your mother to go
green in the face in a distant pinewood, far from all human aid, and
then go home on your wishing carpet as though nothing had happened.
When mother seemed safe the children returned to the carpet, and said
‘Home’--and home they went.
‘I don’t care about being invisible myself,’ said Cyril, ‘at least, not
with my own family. It would be different if you were a prince, or a
bandit, or a burglar.’
And now the thoughts of all four dwelt fondly on the dear greenish face
of mother.
‘I wish she hadn’t gone away,’ said Jane; ‘the house is simply beastly
without her.’
‘I think we ought to do what she said,’ Anthea put in. ‘I saw something
in a book the other day about the wishes of the departed being sacred.’
‘That means when they’ve departed farther off,’ said Cyril. ‘India’s
coral or Greenland’s icy, don’t you know; not Bournemouth. Besides, we
don’t know what her wishes are.’
‘She SAID’--Anthea was very much inclined to cry--‘she said, “Get Indian
things for my bazaar;” but I know she thought we couldn’t, and it was
only play.’
‘Let’s get them all the same,’ said Robert. ‘We’ll go the first thing on
Saturday morning.’
And on Saturday morning, the first thing, they went.
There was no finding the Phoenix, so they sat on the beautiful wishing
carpet, and said--
‘We want Indian things for mother’s bazaar. Will you please take us
where people will give us heaps of Indian things?’
The docile carpet swirled their senses away, and restored them on the
outskirts of a gleaming white Indian town. They knew it was Indian at
once, by the shape of the domes and roofs; and besides, a man went by on
an elephant, and two English soldiers went along the road, talking like
in Mr Kipling’s books--so after that no one could have any doubt as to
where they were. They rolled up the carpet and Robert carried it, and
they walked bodily into the town.
It was very warm, and once more they had to take off their
London-in-November coats, and carry them on their arms.
The streets were narrow and strange, and the clothes of the people in
the streets were stranger and the talk of the people was strangest of
all.
‘I can’t understand a word,’ said Cyril. ‘How on earth are we to ask for
things for our bazaar?’
‘And they’re poor people, too,’ said Jane; ‘I’m sure they are. What we
want is a rajah or something.’
Robert was beginning to unroll the carpet, but the others stopped him,
imploring him not to waste a wish.
‘We asked the carpet to take us where we could get Indian things for
bazaars,’ said Anthea, ‘and it will.’
Her faith was justified.
Just as she finished speaking a very brown gentleman in a turban came
up to them and bowed deeply. He spoke, and they thrilled to the sound of
English words.
‘My ranee, she think you very nice childs. She asks do you lose
yourselves, and do you desire to sell carpet? She see you from her
palkee. You come see her--yes?’
They followed the stranger, who seemed to have a great many more teeth
in his smile than are usual, and he led them through crooked streets
to the ranee’s palace. I am not going to describe the ranee’s palace,
because I really have never seen the palace of a ranee, and Mr Kipling
has. So you can read about it in his books. But I know exactly what
happened there.
The old ranee sat on a low-cushioned seat, and there were a lot of other
ladies with her--all in trousers and veils, and sparkling with tinsel
and gold and jewels. And the brown, turbaned gentleman stood behind a
sort of carved screen, and interpreted what the children said and what
the queen said. And when the queen asked to buy the carpet, the children
said ‘No.’
‘Why?’ asked the ranee.
And Jane briefly said why, and the interpreter interpreted. The queen
spoke, and then the interpreter said--
‘My mistress says it is a good story, and you tell it all through
without thought of time.’
And they had to. It made a long story, especially as it had all to be
told twice--once by Cyril and once by the interpreter. Cyril rather
enjoyed himself. He warmed to his work, and told the tale of the Phoenix
and the Carpet, and the Lone Tower, and the Queen-Cook, in language that
grew insensibly more and more Arabian Nightsy, and the ranee and her
ladies listened to the interpreter, and rolled about on their fat
cushions with laughter.
When the story was ended she spoke, and the interpreter explained that
she had said, ‘Little one, thou art a heaven-born teller of tales,’ and
she threw him a string of turquoises from round her neck.
‘OH, how lovely!’ cried Jane and Anthea.
Cyril bowed several times, and then cleared his throat and said--
‘Thank her very, very much; but I would much rather she gave me some of
the cheap things in the bazaar. Tell her I want them to sell again, and
give the money to buy clothes for poor people who haven’t any.’
‘Tell him he has my leave to sell my gift and clothe the naked with its
price,’ said the queen, when this was translated.
But Cyril said very firmly, ‘No, thank you. The things have got to be
sold to-day at our bazaar, and no one would buy a turquoise necklace at
an English bazaar. They’d think it was sham, or else they’d want to know
where we got it.’
So then the queen sent out for little pretty things, and her servants
piled the carpet with them.
‘I must needs lend you an elephant to carry them away,’ she said,
laughing.
But Anthea said, ‘If the queen will lend us a comb and let us wash our
hands and faces, she shall see a magic thing. We and the carpet and all
these brass trays and pots and carved things and stuffs and things will
just vanish away like smoke.’
The queen clapped her hands at this idea, and lent the children a
sandal-wood comb inlaid with ivory lotus-flowers. And they washed their
faces and hands in silver basins. Then Cyril made a very polite farewell
speech, and quite suddenly he ended with the words--
‘And I wish we were at the bazaar at our schools.’
And of course they were. And the queen and her ladies were left with
their mouths open, gazing at the bare space on the inlaid marble floor
where the carpet and the children had been.
‘That is magic, if ever magic was!’ said the queen, delighted with the
incident; which, indeed, has given the ladies of that court something to
talk about on wet days ever since.
Cyril’s stories had taken some time, so had the meal of strange sweet
foods that they had had while the little pretty things were being
bought, and the gas in the schoolroom was already lighted. Outside, the
winter dusk was stealing down among the Camden Town houses.
‘I’m glad we got washed in India,’ said Cyril. ‘We should have been
awfully late if we’d had to go home and scrub.’
‘Besides,’ Robert said, ‘it’s much warmer washing in India. I shouldn’t
mind it so much if we lived there.’
The thoughtful carpet had dumped the children down in a dusky space
behind the point where the corners of two stalls met. The floor was
littered with string and brown paper, and baskets and boxes were heaped
along the wall.
The children crept out under a stall covered with all sorts of
table-covers and mats and things, embroidered beautifully by idle
ladies with no real work to do. They got out at the end, displacing a
sideboard-cloth adorned with a tasteful pattern of blue geraniums. The
girls got out unobserved, so did Cyril; but Robert, as he cautiously
emerged, was actually walked on by Mrs Biddle, who kept the stall. Her
large, solid foot stood firmly on the small, solid hand of Robert and
who can blame Robert if he DID yell a little?
A crowd instantly collected. Yells are very unusual at bazaars, and
every one was intensely interested. It was several seconds before the
three free children could make Mrs Biddle understand that what she
was walking on was not a schoolroom floor, or even, as she presently
supposed, a dropped pin-cushion, but the living hand of a suffering
child. When she became aware that she really had hurt him, she grew very
angry indeed. When people have hurt other people by accident, the one
who does the hurting is always much the angriest. I wonder why.
‘I’m very sorry, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Biddle; but she spoke more in anger
than in sorrow. ‘Come out! whatever do you mean by creeping about under
the stalls, like earwigs?’
‘We were looking at the things in the corner.’
‘Such nasty, prying ways,’ said Mrs Biddle, ‘will never make you
successful in life. There’s nothing there but packing and dust.’
‘Oh, isn’t there!’ said Jane. ‘That’s all you know.’
‘Little girl, don’t be rude,’ said Mrs Biddle, flushing violet.
‘She doesn’t mean to be; but there ARE some nice things there, all the
same,’ said Cyril; who suddenly felt how impossible it was to inform the
listening crowd that all the treasures piled on the carpet were mother’s
contributions to the bazaar. No one would believe it; and if they did,
and wrote to thank mother, she would think--well, goodness only knew
what she would think. The other three children felt the same.
‘I should like to see them,’ said a very nice lady, whose friends
had disappointed her, and who hoped that these might be belated
contributions to her poorly furnished stall.
She looked inquiringly at Robert, who said, ‘With pleasure, don’t
mention it,’ and dived back under Mrs Biddle’s stall.
‘I wonder you encourage such behaviour,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘I always
speak my mind, as you know, Miss Peasmarsh; and, I must say, I am
surprised.’ She turned to the crowd. ‘There is no entertainment here,’
she said sternly. ‘A very naughty little boy has accidentally hurt
himself, but only slightly. Will you please disperse? It will only
encourage him in naughtiness if he finds himself the centre of
attraction.’
The crowd slowly dispersed. Anthea, speechless with fury, heard a nice
curate say, ‘Poor little beggar!’ and loved the curate at once and for
ever.
Then Robert wriggled out from under the stall with some Benares brass
and some inlaid sandalwood boxes.
‘Liberty!’ cried Miss Peasmarsh. ‘Then Charles has not forgotten, after
all.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Mrs Biddle, with fierce politeness, ‘these objects are
deposited behind MY stall. Some unknown donor who does good by stealth,
and would blush if he could hear you claim the things. Of course they
are for me.’
‘My stall touches yours at the corner,’ said poor Miss Peasmarsh,
timidly, ‘and my cousin did promise--’
The children sidled away from the unequal contest and mingled with
the crowd. Their feelings were too deep for words--till at last Robert
said--
‘That stiff-starched PIG!’
‘And after all our trouble! I’m hoarse with gassing to that trousered
lady in India.’
‘The pig-lady’s very, very nasty,’ said Jane.
It was Anthea who said, in a hurried undertone, ‘She isn’t very nice,
and Miss Peasmarsh is pretty and nice too. Who’s got a pencil?’
It was a long crawl, under three stalls, but Anthea did it. A large
piece of pale blue paper lay among the rubbish in the corner.
She folded it to a square and wrote upon it, licking the pencil at every
word to make it mark quite blackly: ‘All these Indian things are for
pretty, nice Miss Peasmarsh’s stall.’ She thought of adding, ‘There is
nothing for Mrs Biddle;’ but she saw that this might lead to suspicion,
so she wrote hastily: ‘From an unknown donna,’ and crept back among the
boards and trestles to join the others.
So that when Mrs Biddle appealed to the bazaar committee, and the corner
of the stall was lifted and shifted, so that stout clergymen and heavy
ladies could get to the corner without creeping under stalls, the blue
paper was discovered, and all the splendid, shining Indian things were
given over to Miss Peasmarsh, and she sold them all, and got thirty-five
pounds for them.
‘I don’t understand about that blue paper,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘It looks
to me like the work of a lunatic. And saying you were nice and pretty!
It’s not the work of a sane person.’
Anthea and Jane begged Miss Peasmarsh to let them help her to sell the
things, because it was their brother who had announced the good news
that the things had come. Miss Peasmarsh was very willing, for now her
stall, that had been SO neglected, was surrounded by people who wanted
to buy, and she was glad to be helped. The children noted that Mrs
Biddle had not more to do in the way of selling than she could manage
quite well. I hope they were not glad--for you should forgive your
enemies, even if they walk on your hands and then say it is all your
naughty fault. But I am afraid they were not so sorry as they ought to
have been.
It took some time to arrange the things on the stall. The carpet was
spread over it, and the dark colours showed up the brass and silver and
ivory things. It was a happy and busy afternoon, and when Miss Peasmarsh
and the girls had sold every single one of the little pretty things from
the Indian bazaar, far, far away, Anthea and Jane went off with the
boys to fish in the fishpond, and dive into the bran-pie, and hear the
cardboard band, and the phonograph, and the chorus of singing birds that
was done behind a screen with glass tubes and glasses of water.
They had a beautiful tea, suddenly presented to them by the nice curate,
and Miss Peasmarsh joined them before they had had more than three cakes
each. It was a merry party, and the curate was extremely pleasant to
every one, ‘even to Miss Peasmarsh,’ as Jane said afterwards.
‘We ought to get back to the stall,’ said Anthea, when no one could
possibly eat any more, and the curate was talking in a low voice to Miss
Peas marsh about ‘after Easter’.
‘There’s nothing to go back for,’ said Miss Peasmarsh gaily; ‘thanks to
you dear children we’ve sold everything.’
‘There--there’s the carpet,’ said Cyril.
‘Oh,’ said Miss Peasmarsh, radiantly, ‘don’t bother about the carpet.
I’ve sold even that. Mrs Biddle gave me ten shillings for it. She said
it would do for her servant’s bedroom.’
‘Why,’ said Jane, ‘her servants don’t HAVE carpets. We had cook from
her, and she told us so.’
‘No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, if YOU please,’ said the curate,
cheerfully; and Miss Peasmarsh laughed, and looked at him as though she
had never dreamed that any one COULD be so amusing. But the others were
struck dumb. How could they say, ‘The carpet is ours!’ For who brings
carpets to bazaars?
The children were now thoroughly wretched. But I am glad to say that
their wretchedness did not make them forget their manners, as it does
sometimes, even with grown-up people, who ought to know ever so much
better.
They said, ‘Thank you very much for the jolly tea,’ and ‘Thanks for
being so jolly,’ and ‘Thanks awfully for giving us such a jolly time;’
for the curate had stood fish-ponds, and bran-pies, and phonographs, and
the chorus of singing birds, and had stood them like a man. The girls
hugged Miss Peasmarsh, and as they went away they heard the curate say--
‘Jolly little kids, yes, but what about--you will let it be directly
after Easter. Ah, do say you will--’
And Jane ran back and said, before Anthea could drag her away, ‘What are
you going to do after Easter?’
Miss Peasmarsh smiled and looked very pretty indeed. And the curate
said--
‘I hope I am going to take a trip to the Fortunate Islands.’
‘I wish we could take you on the wishing carpet,’ said Jane.
‘Thank you,’ said the curate, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t wait for that. I
must go to the Fortunate Islands before they make me a bishop. I should
have no time afterwards.’
‘I’ve always thought I should marry a bishop,’ said Jane: ‘his aprons
would come in so useful. Wouldn’t YOU like to marry a bishop, Miss
Peasmarsh?’
It was then that they dragged her away.
As it was Robert’s hand that Mrs Biddle had walked on, it was decided
that he had better not recall the incident to her mind, and so make
her angry again. Anthea and Jane had helped to sell things at the rival
stall, so they were not likely to be popular.
A hasty council of four decided that Mrs Biddle would hate Cyril less
than she would hate the others, so the others mingled with the crowd,
and it was he who said to her--
‘Mrs Biddle, WE meant to have that carpet. Would you sell it to us? We
would give you--’
‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘Go away, little boy.’
There was that in her tone which showed Cyril, all too plainly, the
hopelessness of persuasion. He found the others and said--
‘It’s no use; she’s like a lioness robbed of its puppies. We must watch
where it goes--and--Anthea, I don’t care what you say. It’s our own
carpet. It wouldn’t be burglary. It would be a sort of forlorn hope
rescue party--heroic and daring and dashing, and not wrong at all.’
The children still wandered among the gay crowd--but there was no
pleasure there for them any more. The chorus of singing birds sounded
just like glass tubes being blown through water, and the phonograph
simply made a horrid noise, so that you could hardly hear yourself
speak. And the people were buying things they couldn’t possibly want,
and it all seemed very stupid. And Mrs Biddle had bought the wishing
carpet for ten shillings. And the whole of life was sad and grey and
dusty, and smelt of slight gas escapes, and hot people, and cake and
crumbs, and all the children were very tired indeed.
They found a corner within sight of the carpet, and there they waited
miserably, till it was far beyond their proper bedtime. And when it was
ten the people who had bought things went away, but the people who had
been selling stayed to count up their money.
‘And to jaw about it,’ said Robert. ‘I’ll never go to another bazaar as
long as ever I live. My hand is swollen as big as a pudding. I expect
the nails in her horrible boots were poisoned.’
Just then some one who seemed to have a right to interfere said--
‘Everything is over now; you had better go home.’
So they went. And then they waited on the pavement under the gas lamp,
where ragged children had been standing all the evening to listen to
the band, and their feet slipped about in the greasy mud till Mrs Biddle
came out and was driven away in a cab with the many things she hadn’t
sold, and the few things she had bought--among others the carpet. The
other stall-holders left their things at the school till Monday morning,
but Mrs Biddle was afraid some one would steal some of them, so she took
them in a cab.
The children, now too desperate to care for mud or appearances, hung
on behind the cab till it reached Mrs Biddle’s house. When she and the
carpet had gone in and the door was shut Anthea said--
‘Don’t let’s burgle--I mean do daring and dashing rescue acts--till
we’ve given her a chance. Let’s ring and ask to see her.’
The others hated to do this, but at last they agreed, on condition that
Anthea would not make any silly fuss about the burglary afterwards, if
it really had to come to that.
So they knocked and rang, and a scared-looking parlourmaid opened the
front door. While they were asking for Mrs Biddle they saw her. She was
in the dining-room, and she had already pushed back the table and spread
out the carpet to see how it looked on the floor.
‘I knew she didn’t want it for her servants’ bedroom,’ Jane muttered.
Anthea walked straight past the uncomfortable parlourmaid, and the
others followed her. Mrs Biddle had her back to them, and was smoothing
down the carpet with the same boot that had trampled on the hand
of Robert. So that they were all in the room, and Cyril, with great
presence of mind, had shut the room door before she saw them.
‘Who is it, Jane?’ she asked in a sour voice; and then turning suddenly,
she saw who it was. Once more her face grew violet--a deep, dark violet.
‘You wicked daring little things!’ she cried, ‘how dare you come here?
At this time of night, too. Be off, or I’ll send for the police.’
‘Don’t be angry,’ said Anthea, soothingly, ‘we only wanted to ask you
to let us have the carpet. We have quite twelve shillings between us,
and--’
‘How DARE you?’ cried Mrs Biddle, and her voice shook with angriness.
‘You do look horrid,’ said Jane suddenly.
Mrs Biddle actually stamped that booted foot of hers. ‘You rude,
barefaced child!’ she said.
Anthea almost shook Jane; but Jane pushed forward in spite of her.
‘It really IS our nursery carpet,’ she said, ‘you ask ANY ONE if it
isn’t.’
‘Let’s wish ourselves home,’ said Cyril in a whisper.
‘No go,’ Robert whispered back, ‘she’d be there too, and raving mad as
likely as not. Horrid thing, I hate her!’
‘I wish Mrs Biddle was in an angelic good temper,’ cried Anthea,
suddenly. ‘It’s worth trying,’ she said to herself.
Mrs Biddle’s face grew from purple to violet, and from violet to mauve,
and from mauve to pink. Then she smiled quite a jolly smile.
‘Why, so I am!’ she said, ‘what a funny idea! Why shouldn’t I be in a
good temper, my dears.’
Once more the carpet had done its work, and not on Mrs Biddle alone. The
children felt suddenly good and happy.
‘You’re a jolly good sort,’ said Cyril. ‘I see that now. I’m sorry we
vexed you at the bazaar to-day.’
‘Not another word,’ said the changed Mrs Biddle. ‘Of course you shall
have the carpet, my dears, if you’ve taken such a fancy to it. No, no; I
won’t have more than the ten shillings I paid.’
‘It does seem hard to ask you for it after you bought it at the bazaar,’
said Anthea; ‘but it really IS our nursery carpet. It got to the bazaar
by mistake, with some other things.’
‘Did it really, now? How vexing!’ said Mrs Biddle, kindly. ‘Well, my
dears, I can very well give the extra ten shillings; so you take your
carpet and we’ll say no more about it. Have a piece of cake before you
go! I’m so sorry I stepped on your hand, my boy. Is it all right now?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Robert. ‘I say, you ARE good.’
‘Not at all,’ said Mrs Biddle, heartily. ‘I’m delighted to be able to
give any little pleasure to you dear children.’
And she helped them to roll up the carpet, and the boys carried it away
between them.
‘You ARE a dear,’ said Anthea, and she and Mrs Biddle kissed each other
heartily.
‘WELL!’ said Cyril as they went along the street.
‘Yes,’ said Robert, ‘and the odd part is that you feel just as if it
was REAL--her being so jolly, I mean--and not only the carpet making her
nice.’
‘Perhaps it IS real,’ said Anthea, ‘only it was covered up with
crossness and tiredness and things, and the carpet took them away.’
‘I hope it’ll keep them away,’ said Jane; ‘she isn’t ugly at all when
she laughs.’
The carpet has done many wonders in its day; but the case of Mrs
Biddle is, I think, the most wonderful. For from that day she was never
anything like so disagreeable as she was before, and she sent a lovely
silver tea-pot and a kind letter to Miss Peasmarsh when the pretty lady
married the nice curate; just after Easter it was, and they went to
Italy for their honeymoon.
CHAPTER 5. THE TEMPLE
‘I wish we could find the Phoenix,’ said Jane. ‘It’s much better company
than the carpet.’
‘Beastly ungrateful, little kids are,’ said Cyril.
‘No, I’m not; only the carpet never says anything, and it’s so helpless.
It doesn’t seem able to take care of itself. It gets sold, and taken
into the sea, and things like that. You wouldn’t catch the Phoenix
getting sold.’
It was two days after the bazaar. Every one was a little cross--some
days are like that, usually Mondays, by the way. And this was a Monday.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if your precious Phoenix had gone off for good,’
said Cyril; ‘and I don’t know that I blame it. Look at the weather!’
‘It’s not worth looking at,’ said Robert. And indeed it wasn’t.
‘The Phoenix hasn’t gone--I’m sure it hasn’t,’ said Anthea. ‘I’ll have
another look for it.’
Anthea looked under tables and chairs, and in boxes and baskets, in
mother’s work-bag and father’s portmanteau, but still the Phoenix showed
not so much as the tip of one shining feather.
Then suddenly Robert remembered how the whole of the Greek invocation
song of seven thousand lines had been condensed by him into one English
hexameter, so he stood on the carpet and chanted--
‘Oh, come along, come along, you good old beautiful Phoenix,’
and almost at once there was a rustle of wings down the kitchen stairs,
and the Phoenix sailed in on wide gold wings.
‘Where on earth HAVE you been?’ asked Anthea. ‘I’ve looked everywhere
for you.’
‘Not EVERYWHERE,’ replied the bird, ‘because you did not look in the
place where I was. Confess that that hallowed spot was overlooked by
you.’
‘WHAT hallowed spot?’ asked Cyril, a little impatiently, for time was
hastening on, and the wishing carpet still idle.
‘The spot,’ said the Phoenix, ‘which I hallowed by my golden presence
was the Lutron.’
‘The WHAT?’
‘The bath--the place of washing.’
‘I’m sure you weren’t,’ said Jane. ‘I looked there three times and moved
all the towels.’
‘I was concealed,’ said the Phoenix, ‘on the summit of a metal
column--enchanted, I should judge, for it felt warm to my golden toes,
as though the glorious sun of the desert shone ever upon it.’
‘Oh, you mean the cylinder,’ said Cyril: ‘it HAS rather a comforting
feel, this weather. And now where shall we go?’
And then, of course, the usual discussion broke out as to where they
should go and what they should do. And naturally, every one wanted to do
something that the others did not care about.
‘I am the eldest,’ Cyril remarked, ‘let’s go to the North Pole.’
‘This weather! Likely!’ Robert rejoined. ‘Let’s go to the Equator.’
‘I think the diamond mines of Golconda would be nice,’ said Anthea;
‘don’t you agree, Jane?’
‘No, I don’t,’ retorted Jane, ‘I don’t agree with you. I don’t agree
with anybody.’
The Phoenix raised a warning claw.
‘If you cannot agree among yourselves, I fear I shall have to leave
you,’ it said.
‘Well, where shall we go? You decide!’ said all.
‘If I were you,’ said the bird, thoughtfully, ‘I should give the carpet
a rest. Besides, you’ll lose the use of your legs if you go everywhere
by carpet. Can’t you take me out and explain your ugly city to me?’
‘We will if it clears up,’ said Robert, without enthusiasm. ‘Just look
at the rain. And why should we give the carpet a rest?’
‘Are you greedy and grasping, and heartless and selfish?’ asked the
bird, sharply.
‘NO!’ said Robert, with indignation.
‘Well then!’ said the Phoenix. ‘And as to the rain--well, I am not fond
of rain myself. If the sun knew _I_ was here--he’s very fond of shining
on me because I look so bright and golden. He always says I repay a
little attention. Haven’t you some form of words suitable for use in wet
weather?’
‘There’s “Rain, rain, go away,”’ said Anthea; ‘but it never DOES go.’
‘Perhaps you don’t say the invocation properly,’ said the bird.
‘Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day,
Little baby wants to play,’
said Anthea.
‘That’s quite wrong; and if you say it in that sort of dull way, I can
quite understand the rain not taking any notice. You should open the
window and shout as loud as you can--
‘Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day;
Now we want the sun, and so,
Pretty rain, be kind and go!
‘You should always speak politely to people when you want them to do
things, and especially when it’s going away that you want them to do.
And to-day you might add--
‘Shine, great sun, the lovely Phoe-
Nix is here, and wants to be
Shone on, splendid sun, by thee!’
‘That’s poetry!’ said Cyril, decidedly.
‘It’s like it,’ said the more cautious Robert.
‘I was obliged to put in “lovely”,’ said the Phoenix, modestly, ‘to make
the line long enough.’
‘There are plenty of nasty words just that length,’ said Jane; but every
one else said ‘Hush!’ And then they opened the window and shouted the
seven lines as loud as they could, and the Phoenix said all the words
with them, except ‘lovely’, and when they came to that it looked down
and coughed bashfully.
The rain hesitated a moment and then went away.
‘There’s true politeness,’ said the Phoenix, and the next moment it was
perched on the window-ledge, opening and shutting its radiant wings and
flapping out its golden feathers in such a flood of glorious sunshine as
you sometimes have at sunset in autumn time. People said afterwards that
there had not been such sunshine in December for years and years and
years.
‘And now,’ said the bird, ‘we will go out into the city, and you shall
take me to see one of my temples.’
‘Your temples?’
‘I gather from the carpet that I have many temples in this land.’
‘I don’t see how you CAN find anything out from it,’ said Jane: ‘it
never speaks.’
‘All the same, you can pick up things from a carpet,’ said the bird;
‘I’ve seen YOU do it. And I have picked up several pieces of information
in this way. That papyrus on which you showed me my picture--I
understand that it bears on it the name of the street of your city in
which my finest temple stands, with my image graved in stone and in
metal over against its portal.’
‘You mean the fire insurance office,’ said Robert. ‘It’s not really a
temple, and they don’t--’
‘Excuse me,’ said the Phoenix, coldly, ‘you are wholly misinformed. It
IS a temple, and they do.’
‘Don’t let’s waste the sunshine,’ said Anthea; ‘we might argue as we go
along, to save time.’
So the Phoenix consented to make itself a nest in the breast of Robert’s
Norfolk jacket, and they all went out into the splendid sunshine. The
best way to the temple of the Phoenix seemed to be to take the tram, and
on the top of it the children talked, while the Phoenix now and then
put out a wary beak, cocked a cautious eye, and contradicted what the
children were saying.
It was a delicious ride, and the children felt how lucky they were to
have had the money to pay for it. They went with the tram as far as it
went, and when it did not go any farther they stopped too, and got off.
The tram stops at the end of the Gray’s Inn Road, and it was Cyril
who thought that one might well find a short cut to the Phoenix Office
through the little streets and courts that lie tightly packed between
Fetter Lane and Ludgate Circus. Of course, he was quite mistaken, as
Robert told him at the time, and afterwards Robert did not forbear to
remind his brother how he had said so. The streets there were small
and stuffy and ugly, and crowded with printers’ boys and binders’ girls
coming out from work; and these stared so hard at the pretty red coats
and caps of the sisters that they wished they had gone some other way.
And the printers and binders made very personal remarks, advising Jane
to get her hair cut, and inquiring where Anthea had bought that hat.
Jane and Anthea scorned to reply, and Cyril and Robert found that they
were hardly a match for the rough crowd. They could think of nothing
nasty enough to say. They turned a corner sharply, and then Anthea
pulled Jane into an archway, and then inside a door; Cyril and Robert
quickly followed, and the jeering crowd passed by without seein them.
Anthea drew a long breath.
‘How awful!’ she said. ‘I didn’t know there were such people, except in
books.’
‘It was a bit thick; but it’s partly you girls’ fault, coming out in
those flashy coats.’
‘We thought we ought to, when we were going out with the Phoenix,’ said
Jane; and the bird said, ‘Quite right, too’--and incautiously put out
his head to give her a wink of encouragement.
And at the same instant a dirty hand reached through the grim balustrade
of the staircase beside them and clutched the Phoenix, and a hoarse
voice said--
‘I say, Urb, blowed if this ain’t our Poll parrot what we lost. Thank
you very much, lidy, for bringin’ ‘im home to roost.’
The four turned swiftly. Two large and ragged boys were crouched amid
the dark shadows of the stairs. They were much larger than Robert and
Cyril, and one of them had snatched the Phoenix away and was holding it
high above their heads.
‘Give me that bird,’ said Cyril, sternly: ‘it’s ours.’
‘Good arternoon, and thankin’ you,’ the boy went on, with maddening
mockery. ‘Sorry I can’t give yer tuppence for yer trouble--but I’ve
‘ad to spend my fortune advertising for my vallyable bird in all the
newspapers. You can call for the reward next year.’
‘Look out, Ike,’ said his friend, a little anxiously; ‘it ‘ave a beak on
it.’
‘It’s other parties as’ll have the Beak on to ‘em presently,’ said Ike,
darkly, ‘if they come a-trying to lay claims on my Poll parrot. You just
shut up, Urb. Now then, you four little gells, get out er this.’
‘Little girls!’ cried Robert. ‘I’ll little girl you!’
He sprang up three stairs and hit out.
There was a squawk--the most bird-like noise any one had ever heard
from the Phoenix--and a fluttering, and a laugh in the darkness, and Ike
said--
‘There now, you’ve been and gone and strook my Poll parrot right in the
fevvers--strook ‘im something crool, you ‘ave.’
Robert stamped with fury. Cyril felt himself growing pale with rage,
and with the effort of screwing up his brain to make it clever enough to
think of some way of being even with those boys. Anthea and Jane were as
angry as the boys, but it made them want to cry. Yet it was Anthea who
said--
‘Do, PLEASE, let us have the bird.’
‘Dew, PLEASE, get along and leave us an’ our bird alone.’
‘If you don’t,’ said Anthea, ‘I shall fetch the police.’
‘You better!’ said he who was named Urb. ‘Say, Ike, you twist the
bloomin’ pigeon’s neck; he ain’t worth tuppence.’
‘Oh, no,’ cried Jane, ‘don’t hurt it. Oh, don’t; it is such a pet.’
‘I won’t hurt it,’ said Ike; ‘I’m ‘shamed of you, Urb, for to think of
such a thing. Arf a shiner, miss, and the bird is yours for life.’
‘Half a WHAT?’ asked Anthea.
‘Arf a shiner, quid, thick ‘un--half a sov, then.’
‘I haven’t got it--and, besides, it’s OUR bird,’ said Anthea.
‘Oh, don’t talk to him,’ said Cyril and then Jane said suddenly--
‘Phoenix--dear Phoenix, we can’t do anything. YOU must manage it.’
‘With pleasure,’ said the Phoenix--and Ike nearly dropped it in his
amazement.
‘I say, it do talk, suthin’ like,’ said he.
‘Youths,’ said the Phoenix, ‘sons of misfortune, hear my words.’
‘My eyes!’ said Ike.
‘Look out, Ike,’ said Urb, ‘you’ll throttle the joker--and I see at
wunst ‘e was wuth ‘is weight in flimsies.’00
‘Hearken, O Eikonoclastes, despiser of sacred images--and thou, Urbanus,
dweller in the sordid city. Forbear this adventure lest a worse thing
befall.’
‘Luv’ us!’ said Ike, ‘ain’t it been taught its schoolin’ just!’
‘Restore me to my young acolytes and escape unscathed. Retain me--and--’
‘They must ha’ got all this up, case the Polly got pinched,’ said Ike.
‘Lor’ lumme, the artfulness of them young uns!’
‘I say, slosh ‘em in the geseech and get clear off with the swag’s wot I
say,’ urged Herbert.
‘Right O,’ said Isaac.
‘Forbear,’ repeated the Phoenix, sternly. ‘Who pinched the click off of
the old bloke in Aldermanbury?’ it added, in a changed tone.
‘Who sneaked the nose-rag out of the young gell’s ‘and in Bell Court?
Who--’
‘Stow it,’ said Ike. ‘You! ugh! yah!--leave go of me. Bash him off, Urb;
‘e’ll have my bloomin’ eyes outer my ed.’
There were howls, a scuffle, a flutter; Ike and Urb fled up the stairs,
and the Phoenix swept out through the doorway. The children followed and
the Phoenix settled on Robert, ‘like a butterfly on a rose,’ as Anthea
said afterwards, and wriggled into the breast of his Norfolk jacket,
‘like an eel into mud,’ as Cyril later said.
‘Why ever didn’t you burn him? You could have, couldn’t you?’ asked
Robert, when the hurried flight through the narrow courts had ended in
the safe wideness of Farringdon Street.
‘I could have, of course,’ said the bird, ‘but I didn’t think it would
be dignified to allow myself to get warm about a little thing like that.
The Fates, after all, have not been illiberal to me. I have a good many
friends among the London sparrows, and I have a beak and claws.’
These happenings had somewhat shaken the adventurous temper of the
children, and the Phoenix had to exert its golden self to hearten them
up.
Presently the children came to a great house in Lombard Street, and
there, on each side of the door, was the image of the Phoenix carved in
stone, and set forth on shining brass were the words--
PHOENIX FIRE OFFICE
‘One moment,’ said the bird. ‘Fire? For altars, I suppose?’
‘_I_ don’t know,’ said Robert; he was beginning to feel shy, and that
always made him rather cross.
‘Oh, yes, you do,’ Cyril contradicted. ‘When people’s houses are burnt
down the Phoenix gives them new houses. Father told me; I asked him.’
‘The house, then, like the Phoenix, rises from its ashes? Well have my
priests dealt with the sons of men!’
‘The sons of men pay, you know,’ said Anthea; ‘but it’s only a little
every year.’
‘That is to maintain my priests,’ said the bird, ‘who, in the hour of
affliction, heal sorrows and rebuild houses. Lead on; inquire for the
High Priest. I will not break upon them too suddenly in all my glory.
Noble and honour-deserving are they who make as nought the evil deeds of
the lame-footed and unpleasing Hephaestus.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I wish you wouldn’t muddle
us with new names. Fire just happens. Nobody does it--not as a deed,
you know,’ Cyril explained. ‘If they did the Phoenix wouldn’t help them,
because its a crime to set fire to things. Arsenic, or something they
call it, because it’s as bad as poisoning people. The Phoenix wouldn’t
help THEM--father told me it wouldn’t.’
‘My priests do well,’ said the Phoenix. ‘Lead on.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Cyril; and the Others said the same.
‘Ask for the High Priest,’ said the Phoenix. ‘Say that you have a
secret to unfold that concerns my worship, and he will lead you to the
innermost sanctuary.’
So the children went in, all four of them, though they didn’t like it,
and stood in a large and beautiful hall adorned with Doulton tiles,
like a large and beautiful bath with no water in it, and stately pillars
supporting the roof. An unpleasing representation of the Phoenix in
brown pottery disfigured one wall. There were counters and desks of
mahogany and brass, and clerks bent over the desks and walked behind the
counters. There was a great clock over an inner doorway.
‘Inquire for the High Priest,’ whispered the Phoenix.
An attentive clerk in decent black, who controlled his mouth but not his
eyebrows, now came towards them. He leaned forward on the counter, and
the children thought he was going to say, ‘What can I have the pleasure
of showing you?’ like in a draper’s; instead of which the young man
said--
‘And what do YOU want?’
‘We want to see the High Priest.’
‘Get along with you,’ said the young man.
An elder man, also decent in black coat, advanced.
‘Perhaps it’s Mr Blank’ (not for worlds would I give the name). ‘He’s a
Masonic High Priest, you know.’
A porter was sent away to look for Mr Asterisk (I cannot give his name),
and the children were left there to look on and be looked on by all
the gentlemen at the mahogany desks. Anthea and Jane thought that they
looked kind. The boys thought they stared, and that it was like their
cheek.
The porter returned with the news that Mr Dot Dash Dot (I dare not
reveal his name) was out, but that Mr--
Here a really delightful gentleman appeared. He had a beard and a kind
and merry eye, and each one of the four knew at once that this was a man
who had kiddies of his own and could understand what you were talking
about. Yet it was a difficult thing to explain.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Mr’--he named the name which I will never
reveal--‘is out. Can I do anything?’
‘Inner sanctuary,’ murmured the Phoenix.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said the nice gentleman, who thought it was Robert
who had spoken.
‘We have something to tell you,’ said Cyril, ‘but’--he glanced at the
porter, who was lingering much nearer than he need have done--‘this is a
very public place.’
The nice gentleman laughed.
‘Come upstairs then,’ he said, and led the way up a wide and beautiful
staircase. Anthea says the stairs were of white marble, but I am not
sure. On the corner-post of the stairs, at the top, was a beautiful
image of the Phoenix in dark metal, and on the wall at each side was a
flat sort of image of it.
The nice gentleman led them into a room where the chairs, and even the
tables, were covered with reddish leather. He looked at the children
inquiringly.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said; ‘tell me exactly what you want.’
‘May I shut the door?’ asked Cyril.
The gentleman looked surprised, but he shut the door.
‘Now,’ said Cyril, firmly, ‘I know you’ll be awfully surprised, and
you’ll think it’s not true and we are lunatics; but we aren’t, and it
is. Robert’s got something inside his Norfolk--that’s Robert, he’s my
young brother. Now don’t be upset and have a fit or anything sir. Of
course, I know when you called your shop the “Phoenix” you never thought
there was one; but there is--and Robert’s got it buttoned up against his
chest!’
‘If it’s an old curio in the form of a Phoenix, I dare say the Board--’
said the nice gentleman, as Robert began to fumble with his buttons.
‘It’s old enough,’ said Anthea, ‘going by what it says, but--’
‘My goodness gracious!’ said the gentleman, as the Phoenix, with one
last wriggle that melted into a flutter, got out of its nest in the
breast of Robert and stood up on the leather-covered table.
‘What an extraordinarily fine bird!’ he went on. ‘I don’t think I ever
saw one just like it.’
‘I should think not,’ said the Phoenix, with pardonable pride. And the
gentleman jumped.
‘Oh, it’s been taught to speak! Some sort of parrot, perhaps?’
‘I am,’ said the bird, simply, ‘the Head of your House, and I have come
to my temple to receive your homage. I am no parrot’--its beak curved
scornfully--‘I am the one and only Phoenix, and I demand the homage of
my High Priest.’
‘In the absence of our manager,’ the gentleman began, exactly as though
he were addressing a valued customer--‘in the absence of our manager, I
might perhaps be able--What am I saying?’ He turned pale, and passed
his hand across his brow. ‘My dears,’ he said, ‘the weather is unusually
warm for the time of year, and I don’t feel quite myself. Do you know,
for a moment I really thought that that remarkable bird of yours had
spoken and said it was the Phoenix, and, what’s more, that I’d believed
it.’
‘So it did, sir,’ said Cyril, ‘and so did you.’
‘It really--Allow me.’
A bell was rung. The porter appeared.
‘Mackenzie,’ said the gentleman, ‘you see that golden bird?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The other breathed a sigh of relief.
‘It IS real, then?’
‘Yes, sir, of course, sir. You take it in your hand, sir,’ said the
porter, sympathetically, and reached out his hand to the Phoenix, who
shrank back on toes curved with agitated indignation.
‘Forbear!’ it cried; ‘how dare you seek to lay hands on me?’
The porter saluted.
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘I thought you was a bird.’
‘I AM a bird--THE bird--the Phoenix.’
‘Of course you are, sir,’ said the porter. ‘I see that the first minute,
directly I got my breath, sir.’
‘That will do,’ said the gentleman. ‘Ask Mr Wilson and Mr Sterry to step
up here for a moment, please.’
Mr Sterry and Mr Wilson were in their turn overcome by
amazement--quickly followed by conviction. To the surprise of the
children every one in the office took the Phoenix at its word, and after
the first shock of surprise it seemed to be perfectly natural to every
one that the Phoenix should be alive, and that, passing through London,
it should call at its temple.
‘We ought to have some sort of ceremony,’ said the nicest
gentleman, anxiously. ‘There isn’t time to summon the directors and
shareholders--we might do that tomorrow, perhaps. Yes, the board-room
would be best. I shouldn’t like it to feel we hadn’t done everything in
our power to show our appreciation of its condescension in looking in on
us in this friendly way.’
The children could hardly believe their ears, for they had never thought
that any one but themselves would believe in the Phoenix. And yet every
one did; all the men in the office were brought in by twos and threes,
and the moment the Phoenix opened its beak it convinced the cleverest
of them, as well as those who were not so clever. Cyril wondered how the
story would look in the papers next day. He seemed to see the posters in
the streets:
PHOENIX FIRE OFFICE
THE PHOENIX AT ITS TEMPLE
MEETING TO WELCOME IT
DELIGHT OF THE MANAGER AND EVERYBODY.
‘Excuse our leaving you a moment,’ said the nice gentleman, and he went
away with the others; and through the half-closed door the children
could hear the sound of many boots on stairs, the hum of excited voices
explaining, suggesting, arguing, the thumpy drag of heavy furniture
being moved about.
The Phoenix strutted up and down the leather-covered table, looking over
its shoulder at its pretty back.
‘You see what a convincing manner I have,’ it said proudly.
And now a new gentleman came in and said, bowing low--
‘Everything is prepared--we have done our best at so short a notice; the
meeting--the ceremony--will be in the board-room. Will the Honourable
Phoenix walk--it is only a few steps--or would it like to be--would it
like some sort of conveyance?’
‘My Robert will bear me to the board-room, if that be the unlovely name
of my temple’s inmost court,’ replied the bird.
So they all followed the gentleman. There was a big table in the
board-room, but it had been pushed right up under the long windows at
one side, and chairs were arranged in rows across the room--like those
you have at schools when there is a magic lantern on ‘Our Eastern
Empire’, or on ‘The Way We Do in the Navy’. The doors were of carved
wood, very beautiful, with a carved Phoenix above. Anthea noticed that
the chairs in the front rows were of the kind that her mother so loved
to ask the price of in old furniture shops, and never could buy, because
the price was always nearly twenty pounds each. On the mantelpiece were
some heavy bronze candlesticks and a clock, and on the top of the clock
was another image of the Phoenix.
‘Remove that effigy,’ said the Phoenix to the gentlemen who were there,
and it was hastily taken down. Then the Phoenix fluttered to the middle
of the mantelpiece and stood there, looking more golden than ever. Then
every one in the house and the office came in--from the cashier to the
women who cooked the clerks’ dinners in the beautiful kitchen at the top
of the house. And every one bowed to the Phoenix and then sat down in a
chair.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the nicest gentleman, ‘we have met here today--’
The Phoenix was turning its golden beak from side to side.
‘I don’t notice any incense,’ it said, with an injured sniff. A hurried
consultation ended in plates being fetched from the kitchen. Brown
sugar, sealing-wax, and tobacco were placed on these, and something from
a square bottle was poured over it all. Then a match was applied. It was
the only incense that was handy in the Phoenix office, and it certainly
burned very briskly and smoked a great deal.
‘We have met here today,’ said the gentleman again, ‘on an occasion
unparalleled in the annals of this office. Our respected Phoenix--’
‘Head of the House,’ said the Phoenix, in a hollow voice.
‘I was coming to that. Our respected Phoenix, the Head of this ancient
House, has at length done us the honour to come among us. I think I may
say, gentlemen, that we are not insensible to this honour, and that we
welcome with no uncertain voice one whom we have so long desired to see
in our midst.’
Several of the younger clerks thought of saying ‘Hear, hear,’ but they
feared it might seem disrespectful to the bird.
‘I will not take up your time,’ the speaker went on, ‘by recapitulating
the advantages to be derived from a proper use of our system of fire
insurance. I know, and you know, gentlemen, that our aim has ever been
to be worthy of that eminent bird whose name we bear, and who now adorns
our mantelpiece with his presence. Three cheers, gentlemen, for the
winged Head of the House!’
The cheers rose, deafening. When they had died away the Phoenix was
asked to say a few words.
It expressed in graceful phrases the pleasure it felt in finding itself
at last in its own temple.
‘And,’ it went on, ‘You must not think me wanting in appreciation of
your very hearty and cordial reception when I ask that an ode may be
recited or a choric song sung. It is what I have always been accustomed
to.’
The four children, dumb witnesses of this wonderful scene, glanced a
little nervously across the foam of white faces above the sea of black
coats. It seemed to them that the Phoenix was really asking a little too
much.
‘Time presses,’ said the Phoenix, ‘and the original ode of invocation is
long, as well as being Greek; and, besides, it’s no use invoking me when
here I am; but is there not a song in your own tongue for a great day
such as this?’
Absently the manager began to sing, and one by one the rest joined--
‘Absolute security!
No liability!
All kinds of property
insured against fire.
Terms most favourable,
Expenses reasonable,
Moderate rates for annual
Insurance.’
‘That one is NOT my favourite,’ interrupted the Phoenix, ‘and I think
you’ve forgotten part of it.’
The manager hastily began another--
‘O Golden Phoenix, fairest bird,
The whole great world has often heard
Of all the splendid things we do,
Great Phoenix, just to honour you.’
‘That’s better,’ said the bird. And every one sang--
‘Class one, for private dwelling-house,
For household goods and shops allows;
Provided these are built of brick
Or stone, and tiled and slated thick.’
‘Try another verse,’ said the Phoenix, ‘further on.’
And again arose the voices of all the clerks and employees and managers
and secretaries and cooks--
‘In Scotland our insurance yields
The price of burnt-up stacks in fields.’
‘Skip that verse,’ said the Phoenix.
‘Thatched dwellings and their whole contents
We deal with--also with their rents;
Oh, glorious Phoenix, look and see
That these are dealt with in class three.
‘The glories of your temple throng
Too thick to go in any song;
And we attend, O good and wise,
To “days of grace” and merchandise.
‘When people’s homes are burned away
They never have a cent to pay
If they have done as all should do,
O Phoenix, and have honoured you.
‘So let us raise our voice and sing
The praises of the Phoenix King.
In classes one and two and three,
Oh, trust to him, for kind is he!’
‘I’m sure YOU’RE very kind,’ said the Phoenix; ‘and now we must be
going. An thank you very much for a very pleasant time. May you all
prosper as you deserve to do, for I am sure a nicer, pleasanter-spoken
lot of temple attendants I have never met, and never wish to meet. I
wish you all good-day!’
It fluttered to the wrist of Robert and drew the four children from the
room. The whole of the office staff followed down the wide stairs and
filed into their accustomed places, and the two most important officials
stood on the steps bowing till Robert had buttoned the golden bird in
his Norfolk bosom, and it and he and the three other children were lost
in the crowd.
The two most important gentlemen looked at each other earnestly and
strangely for a moment, and then retreated to those sacred inner rooms,
where they toil without ceasing for the good of the House.
And the moment they were all in their places--managers, secretaries,
clerks, and porters--they all started, and each looked cautiously round
to see if any one was looking at him. For each thought that he had
fallen asleep for a few minutes, and had dreamed a very odd dream about
the Phoenix and the board-room. And, of course, no one mentioned it
to any one else, because going to sleep at your office is a thing you
simply MUST NOT do.
The extraordinary confusion of the board-room, with the remains of the
incense in the plates, would have shown them at once that the visit of
the Phoenix had been no dream, but a radiant reality, but no one went
into the board-room again that day; and next day, before the office
was opened, it was all cleaned and put nice and tidy by a lady whose
business asking questions was not part of. That is why Cyril read
the papers in vain on the next day and the day after that; because no
sensible person thinks his dreams worth putting in the paper, and no one
will ever own that he has been asleep in the daytime.
The Phoenix was very pleased, but it decided to write an ode for itself.
It thought the ones it had heard at its temple had been too hastily
composed. Its own ode began--
‘For beauty and for modest worth
The Phoenix has not its equal on earth.’
And when the children went to bed that night it was still trying to cut
down the last line to the proper length without taking out any of what
it wanted to say.
That is what makes poetry so difficult.
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 were
all going for Christmas to their aunt’s at Lyndhurst, and how father and
mother would meet them there, having been read by every one, lay on the
table, drinking hot bacon-fat with one corner and eating marmalade with
the other.
‘Yes, glad,’ said Jane. ‘I don’t want any more things to happen
just now. I feel like you do when you’ve been to three parties in a
week--like we did at granny’s once--and extras in between, toys and
chocs and things like that. I want everything to be just real, and no
fancy things happening at all.’ ‘I don’t like being obliged to keep
things from mother,’ said Anthea. ‘I don’t know why, but it makes me
feel selfish and mean.’
‘If we could only get the mater to believe it, we might take her to the
jolliest places,’ said Cyril, thoughtfully. ‘As it is, we’ve just got to
be 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 as
bad.’
‘It’s worse,’ said Robert; ‘if you knew it and didn’t feel it, it
wouldn’t matter so much.’
‘That’s being a hardened criminal, father says,’ put in Cyril, and he
picked up mother’s letter and wiped its corners with his handkerchief,
to whose colour a trifle of bacon-fat and marmalade made but little
difference.
‘We’re going to-morrow, anyhow,’ said Robert. ‘Don’t,’ he added, with
a good-boy expression on his face--‘don’t let’s be ungrateful for our
blessings; don’t let’s waste the day in saying how horrid it is to keep
secrets from mother, when we all know Anthea tried all she knew to give
her the secret, and she wouldn’t take it. Let’s get on the carpet and
have a jolly good wish. You’ll have time enough to repent of things all
next week.’
‘Yes,’ said Cyril, ‘let’s. It’s not really wrong.’
‘Well, look here,’ said Anthea. ‘You know there’s something about
Christmas that makes you want to be good--however little you wish it at
other times. Couldn’t we wish the carpet to take us somewhere where we
should have the chance to do some good and kind action? It would be an
adventure just the same,’ she pleaded.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Cyril. ‘We shan’t know where we’re going, and
that’ll be exciting. No one knows what’ll happen. We’d best put on our
outers 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--more
tea, please,’ said Robert, ‘and we should see the old man hide it away
in the secret cupboard; and then, after long years, when the rightful
heir was in despair, we should lead him to the hidden panel and--’
‘Yes,’ interrupted Anthea; ‘or we might be taken to some freezing garret
in a German town, where a poor little pale, sick child--’
‘We haven’t any German money,’ interrupted Cyril, ‘so THAT’S no go. What
I should like would be getting into the middle of a war and getting hold
of secret intelligence and taking it to the general, and he would make
me a lieutenant or a scout, or a hussar.’
When breakfast was cleared away, Anthea swept the carpet, and the
children sat down on it, together with the Phoenix, who had been
especially invited, as a Christmas treat, to come with them and witness
the 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 the
carpet’s movement as little as possible.
When the eyes were opened again the children found themselves on the
carpet, and the carpet was in its proper place on the floor of their own
nursery 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?’ Robert
anxiously 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 like
the 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 clothes
for the bare heathens. Well, I simply won’t. And the last day and
everything. Look here!’ Cyril spoke loudly and firmly. ‘We want to go
somewhere really interesting, where we have a chance of doing something
good 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 one
bird fell in a heap together, and as they fell were plunged in perfect
darkness.
‘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 my
hand in a puddle!’
‘Has any one got any matches?’ said Anthea, hopelessly. She felt sure
that no one would have any.
It was then that Robert, with a radiant smile of triumph that was quite
wasted 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 a
candle--two candles. And every one, with its mouth open, blinked at the
sudden light.
‘Well done Bobs,’ said his sisters, and even Cyril’s natural brotherly
feelings could not check his admiration of Robert’s foresight.
‘I’ve always carried them about ever since the lone tower day,’ said
Robert, with modest pride. ‘I knew we should want them some day. I kept
the 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 reading
in bed by.’
‘Bobs,’ said Anthea, suddenly, ‘do you know where we are? This is
the underground passage, and look there--there’s the money and the
money-bags, and everything.’
By this time the ten eyes had got used to the light of the candles, and
no 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 we
might find a prisoner who has languished here for years and years, and
we could take him out on our carpet and restore him to his sorrowing
friends.’
‘Of course we could,’ said Robert, standing up and holding the candle
above his head to see further off; ‘or we might find the bones of a
poor prisoner and take them to his friends to be buried properly--that’s
always a kind action in books, though I never could see what bones
matter.’
‘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 inside
there--’
‘If you don’t stop going on like that,’ said Jane, firmly, ‘I shall
scream, 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 just
love to think of things in dungeons, and chains, and knobbly bare human
bones, and--’
Jane had opened her mouth to scream, but before she could decide how you
began when you wanted to faint, the golden voice of the Phoenix spoke
through the gloom.
‘Peace!’ it said; ‘there are no bones here except the small but useful
sets that you have inside you. And you did not invite me to come out
with you to hear you talk about bones, but to see you do some good and
kind action.’
‘We can’t do it here,’ said Robert, sulkily.
‘No,’ rejoined the bird. ‘The only thing we can do here, it seems, is to
try to frighten our little sisters.’
‘He didn’t, really, and I’m not so VERY little,’ said Jane, rather
ungratefully.
Robert was silent. It was Cyril who suggested that perhaps they had
better take the money and go.
‘That wouldn’t be a kind act, except to ourselves; and it wouldn’t be
good, whatever way you look at it,’ said Anthea, ‘to take money that’s
not 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 is
taking 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 day
arguing while the candles burn out. You’ll like it awfully when it’s all
dark again--and bony.’
‘Let’s get out, then,’ said Anthea. ‘We can argue as we go.’ So they
rolled up the carpet and went. But when they had crept along to the
place where the passage led into the topless tower they found the way
blocked 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 or
a secret passage.’
So they turned round and went back, and Robert was made to go first with
one of the candles, because he was the one who had begun to talk about
bones. And Cyril carried the carpet.
‘I wish you hadn’t put bones into our heads,’ said Jane, as they went
along.
‘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 and
dark alcoves that the girls did not much like passing. The passage ended
in a flight of steps. Robert went up them.
Suddenly he staggered heavily back on to the following feet of Jane, and
everybody screamed, ‘Oh! what is it?’
‘I’ve only bashed my head in,’ said Robert, when he had groaned for some
time; ‘that’s all. Don’t mention it; I like it. The stairs just go right
slap into the ceiling, and it’s a stone ceiling. You can’t do good and
kind 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 his
head.
But Cyril had pushed past him to the top stair, and was already shoving
his hardest against the stone above. Of course, it did not give in the
least.
‘If it’s a trap-door--’ said Cyril. And he stopped shoving and began to
feel 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’s
bicycle; he put the carpet down at the foot of the stairs, and he lay
on his back, with his head on the top step and his feet straggling down
among his young relations, and he oiled the bolt till the drops of rust
and oil fell down on his face. One even went into his mouth--open, as he
panted with the exertion of keeping up this unnatural position. Then
he tried again, but still the bolt would not move. So now he tied his
handkerchief--the one with the bacon-fat and marmalade on it--to the
bolt, and Robert’s handkerchief to that, in a reef knot, which cannot
come undone however much you pull, and, indeed, gets tighter and tighter
the 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, and
suddenly the bolt gave way with a rusty scrunch, and they all rolled
together to the bottom of the stairs--all but the Phoenix, which had
taken to its wings when the pulling began.
Nobody was hurt much, because the rolled-up carpet broke their fall; and
now, indeed, the shoulders of the boys were used to some purpose, for
the stone allowed them to heave it up. They felt it give; dust fell
freely on them.
‘Now, then,’ cried Robert, forgetting his head and his temper, ‘push all
together. One, two, three!’
The stone was heaved up. It swung up on a creaking, unwilling hinge, and
showed a growing oblong of dazzling daylight; and it fell back with a
bang against something that kept it upright. Every one climbed out,
but there was not room for every one to stand comfortably in the
little paved house where they found themselves, so when the Phoenix had
fluttered up from the darkness they let the stone down, and it closed
like a trap-door, as indeed it was.
You can have no idea how dusty and dirty the children were. Fortunately
there was no one to see them but each other. The place they were in
was a little shrine, built on the side of a road that went winding up
through yellow-green fields to the topless tower. Below them were fields
and orchards, all bare boughs and brown furrows, and little houses and
gardens. The shrine was a kind of tiny chapel with no front wall--just a
place for people to stop and rest in and wish to be good. So the Phoenix
told them. There was an image that had once been brightly coloured, but
the 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, very
neglected and lonely, and yet it was nice, Anthea thought, that poor
travellers should come to this little rest-house in the hurry and worry
of their journeyings and be quiet for a few minutes, and think about
being good. The thought of St Jean de Luz--who had, no doubt, in his
time, been very good and kind--made Anthea want more than ever to do
something kind and good.
‘Tell us,’ she said to the Phoenix, ‘what is the good and kind action
the carpet brought us here to do?’
‘I think it would be kind to find the owners of the treasure and tell
them 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 the
castle,’ 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. A
little way on they found a tiny spring, bubbling out of the hillside and
falling into a rough stone basin surrounded by draggled hart’s-tongue
ferns, now hardly green at all. Here the children washed their hands
and faces and dried them on their pocket-handkerchiefs, which always,
on these occasions, seem unnaturally small. Cyril’s and Robert’s
handkerchiefs, indeed, rather undid the effects of the wash. But in
spite of this the party certainly looked cleaner than before.
The first house they came to was a little white house with green
shutters and a slate roof. It stood in a prim little garden, and down
each side of the neat path were large stone vases for flowers to grow
in; but all the flowers were dead now.
Along one side of the house was a sort of wide veranda, built of poles
and trellis-work, and a vine crawled all over it. It was wider than our
English verandas, and Anthea thought it must look lovely when the
green leaves and the grapes were there; but now there were only dry,
reddish-brown stalks and stems, with a few withered leaves caught in
them.
The children walked up to the front door. It was green and narrow. A
chain with a handle hung beside it, and joined itself quite openly to a
rusty bell that hung under the porch. Cyril had pulled the bell and
its 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 pale
ringlets like whitey-brown paper or oak shavings, stood before them. She
had an ugly grey dress and a black silk apron. Her eyes were small
and grey and not pretty, and the rims were red, as though she had been
crying.
She addressed the party in something that sounded like a foreign
language, 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 his
jacket, where the Phoenix was nestling. But before the Phoenix could
answer, the whitey-brown lady’s face was lighted up by a most charming
smile.
‘You--you ar-r-re fr-r-rom the England!’ she cried. ‘I love so much
the England. Mais entrez--entrez donc tous! Enter, then--enter all. One
essuyes 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, wiping their feet on a very clean mat, and putting
the carpet in a safe corner of the veranda.
‘The most beautiful days of my life,’ said the lady, as she shut the
door, ‘did pass themselves in England. And since long time I have not
heard an English voice to repeal me the past.’
This warm welcome embarrassed every one, but most the boys, for the
floor of the hall was of such very clean red and white tiles, and
the floor of the sitting-room so very shiny--like a black
looking-glass--that each felt as though he had on far more boots than
usual, and far noisier.
There was a wood fire, very small and very bright, on the hearth--neat
little logs laid on brass fire-dogs. Some portraits of powdered ladies
and gentlemen hung in oval frames on the pale walls. There were silver
candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and there were chairs and a table, very
slim and polite, with slender legs. The room was extremely bare, but
with a bright foreign bareness that was very cheerful, in an odd way of
its own. At the end of the polished table a very un-English little boy
sat on a footstool in a high-backed, uncomfortable-looking chair. He
wore black velvet, and the kind of collar--all frills and lacey--that
Robert would rather have died than wear; but then the little French boy
was much younger than Robert.
‘Oh, how pretty!’ said every one. But no one meant the little French
boy, 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 very
bright little things made of tinsel and coloured paper. There were tiny
candles on the tree, but they were not lighted yet.
‘But yes--is it not that it is genteel?’ said the lady. ‘Sit down you
then, and let us see.’
The children sat down in a row on the stiff chairs against the wall, and
the lady lighted a long, slim red taper at the wood flame, and then she
drew the curtains and lit the little candles, and when they were all
lighted 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 the
Phoenix--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 genteel
parrakeet!’
‘It won’t,’ said Robert, ‘thank you.’
And the little French boy clapped his clean and tidy hands; but the lady
was so anxious that the Phoenix fluttered down and walked up and down on
the 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 other
things?’
And the Phoenix replied, this time in English, ‘Why are you sad so near
Christmas-time?’
The children looked at it with one gasp of horror and surprise, for
the youngest of them knew that it is far from manners to notice that
strangers have been crying, and much worse to ask them the reason of
their tears. And, of course, the lady began to cry again, very much
indeed, after calling the Phoenix a bird without a heart; and she could
not find her handkerchief, so Anthea offered hers, which was still very
damp and no use at all. She also hugged the lady, and this seemed to be
of more use than the handkerchief, so that presently the lady stopped
crying, and found her own handkerchief and dried her eyes, and called
Anthea a cherished angel.
‘I am sorry we came just when you were so sad,’ said Anthea, ‘but we
really only wanted to ask you whose that castle is on the hill.’
‘Oh, my little angel,’ said the poor lady, sniffing, ‘to-day and for
hundreds of years the castle is to us, to our family. To-morrow it must
that I sell it to some strangers--and my little Henri, who ignores
all, he will not have never the lands paternal. But what will you? His
father, my brother--Mr the Marquis--has spent much of money, and it the
must, despite the sentiments of familial respect, that I admit that my
sainted father he also--’
‘How would you feel if you found a lot of money--hundreds and thousands
of gold pieces?’ asked Cyril.
The lady smiled sadly.
‘Ah! one has already recounted to you the legend?’ she said. ‘It is
true that one says that it is long time; oh! but long time, one of our
ancestors has hid a treasure--of gold, and of gold, and of gold--enough
to enrich my little Henri for the life. But all that, my children, it is
but the accounts of fays--’
‘She means fairy stories,’ whispered the Phoenix to Robert. ‘Tell her
what you have found.’
So Robert told, while Anthea and Jane hugged the lady for fear she
should faint for joy, like people in books, and they hugged her with the
earnest, joyous hugs of unselfish delight.
‘It’s no use explaining how we got in,’ said Robert, when he had told
of the finding of the treasure, ‘because you would find it a little
difficult to understand, and much more difficult to believe. But we can
show you where the gold is and help you to fetch it away.’
The lady looked doubtfully at Robert as she absently returned the hugs
of the girls.
‘No, he’s not making it up,’ said Anthea; ‘it’s true, TRUE, TRUE!--and
we are so glad.’
‘You would not be capable to torment an old woman?’ she said; ‘and it is
not 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 raptures
of the others.
‘If I do not dream,’ she said, ‘Henri come to Manon--and you--you shall
come all with me to Mr the Curate. Is it not?’
Manon was a wrinkled old woman with a red and yellow handkerchief
twisted round her head. She took Henri, who was already sleepy with the
excitement of his Christmas-tree and his visitors, and when the lady had
put on a stiff black cape and a wonderful black silk bonnet and a pair
of black wooden clogs over her black cashmere house-boots, the whole
party went down the road to a little white house--very like the one they
had left--where an old priest, with a good face, welcomed them with a
politeness so great that it hid his astonishment.
The lady, with her French waving hands and her shrugging French
shoulders and her trembling French speech, told the story. And now the
priest, who knew no English, shrugged HIS shoulders and waved HIS hands
and spoke also in French.
‘He thinks,’ whispered the Phoenix, ‘that her troubles have turned her
brain. What a pity you know no French!’
‘I do know a lot of French,’ whispered Robert, indignantly; ‘but it’s
all about the pencil of the gardener’s son and the penknife of the
baker’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; and
then 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 and
ended with these useful words; but, at any rate, he saw that if the lady
was mad she was not the only one, and he put on a big beavery hat, and
got a candle and matches and a spade, and they all went up the hill to
the 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 did
go first, and they all followed and found the golden treasure exactly as
they had left it. And every one was flushed with the joy of performing
such a wonderfully kind action.
Then the lady and the priest clasped hands and wept for joy, as French
people do, and knelt down and touched the money, and talked very fast
and both together, and the lady embraced all the children three times
each, and called them ‘little garden angels,’ and then she and the
priest shook each other by both hands again, and talked, and talked, and
talked, 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 radiant
dream.
So the children crept away, and out through the little shrine, and the
lady and the priest were so tearfully, talkatively happy that they never
noticed that the guardian angels had gone.
The ‘garden angels’ ran down the hill to the lady’s little house, where
they had left the carpet on the veranda, and they spread it out and
said ‘Home,’ and no one saw them disappear, except little Henri, who
had flattened his nose into a white button against the window-glass, and
when he tried to tell his aunt she thought he had been dreaming. So that
was all right.
‘It is much the best thing we’ve done,’ said Anthea, when they talked
it over at tea-time. ‘In the future we’ll only do kind actions with the
carpet.’
‘Ahem!’ said the Phoenix.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Anthea.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said the bird. ‘I was only thinking!’
CHAPTER 7. MEWS FROM PERSIA
When you hear that the four children found themselves at Waterloo
Station quite un-taken-care-of, and with no one to meet them, it may
make you think that their parents were neither kind nor careful. But if
you think this you will be wrong. The fact is, mother arranged with Aunt
Emma that she was to meet the children at Waterloo, when they went back
from their Christmas holiday at Lyndhurst. The train was fixed, but not
the day. Then mother wrote to Aunt Emma, giving her careful instructions
about the day and the hour, and about luggage and cabs and things, and
gave the letter to Robert to post. But the hounds happened to meet near
Rufus Stone that morning, and what is more, on the way to the meet they
met Robert, and Robert met them, and instantly forgot all about posting
Aunt Emma’s letter, and never thought of it again until he and
the others had wandered three times up and down the platform at
Waterloo--which makes six in all--and had bumped against old gentlemen,
and stared in the faces of ladies, and been shoved by people in a hurry,
and ‘by-your-leaved’ by porters with trucks, and were quite, quite sure
that Aunt Emma was not there. Then suddenly the true truth of what he
had forgotten to do came home to Robert, and he said, ‘Oh, crikey!’ and
stood still with his mouth open, and let a porter with a Gladstone bag
in each hand and a bundle of umbrellas under one arm blunder heavily
into him, and never so much as said, ‘Where are you shoving to now?’ or,
‘Look out where you’re going, can’t you?’ The heavier bag smote him at
the knee, and he staggered, but he said nothing.
When the others understood what was the matter I think they told Robert
what they thought of him.
‘We must take the train to Croydon,’ said Anthea, ‘and find Aunt Emma.’
‘Yes,’ said Cyril, ‘and precious pleased those Jevonses would be to see
us and our traps.’
Aunt Emma, indeed, was staying with some Jevonses--very prim people.
They were middle-aged and wore very smart blouses, and they were fond of
matinees and shopping, and they did not care about children.
‘I know MOTHER would be pleased to see us if we went back,’ said Jane.
‘Yes, she would, but she’d think it was not right to show she was
pleased, because it’s Bob’s fault we’re not met. Don’t I know the sort
of thing?’ said Cyril. ‘Besides, we’ve no tin. No; we’ve got enough for
a growler among us, but not enough for tickets to the New Forest. We
must just go home. They won’t be so savage when they find we’ve really
got home all right. You know auntie was only going to take us home in a
cab.’
‘I believe we ought to go to Croydon,’ Anthea insisted.
‘Aunt Emma would be out to a dead cert,’ said Robert. ‘Those Jevonses go
to the theatre every afternoon, I believe. Besides, there’s the Phoenix
at home, AND the carpet. I votes we call a four-wheeled cabman.’
A four-wheeled cabman was called--his cab was one of the old-fashioned
kind with straw in the bottom--and he was asked by Anthea to drive them
very carefully to their address. This he did, and the price he asked
for doing so was exactly the value of the gold coin grandpapa had given
Cyril for Christmas. This cast a gloom; but Cyril would never have
stooped to argue about a cab-fare, for fear the cabman should think he
was not accustomed to take cabs whenever he wanted them. For a reason
that was something like this he told the cabman to put the luggage
on the steps, and waited till the wheels of the growler had grittily
retired before he rang the bell.
‘You see,’ he said, with his hand on the handle, ‘we don’t want cook
and Eliza asking us before HIM how it is we’ve come home alone, as if we
were babies.’
Here he rang the bell; and the moment its answering clang was heard,
every one felt that it would be some time before that bell was answered.
The sound of a bell is quite different, somehow, when there is anyone
inside the house who hears it. I can’t tell you why that is--but so it
is.
‘I expect they’re changing their dresses,’ said Jane.
‘Too late,’ said Anthea, ‘it must be past five. I expect Eliza’s gone to
post a letter, and cook’s gone to see the time.’
Cyril rang again. And the bell did its best to inform the listening
children that there was really no one human in the house. They rang
again and listened intently. The hearts of all sank low. It is a
terrible thing to be locked out of your own house, on a dark, muggy
January evening.
‘There is no gas on anywhere,’ said Jane, in a broken voice.
‘I expect they’ve left the gas on once too often, and the draught blew
it out, and they’re suffocated in their beds. Father always said they
would some day,’ said Robert cheerfully.
‘Let’s go and fetch a policeman,’ said Anthea, trembling.
‘And be taken up for trying to be burglars--no, thank you,’ said Cyril.
‘I heard father read out of the paper about a young man who got into his
own mother’s house, and they got him made a burglar only the other day.’
‘I only hope the gas hasn’t hurt the Phoenix,’ said Anthea. ‘It said it
wanted to stay in the bathroom cupboard, and I thought it would be all
right, because the servants never clean that out. But if it’s gone and
got out and been choked by gas--And besides, directly we open the door
we shall be choked, too. I KNEW we ought to have gone to Aunt Emma, at
Croydon. Oh, Squirrel, I wish we had. Let’s go NOW.’
‘Shut up,’ said her brother, briefly. ‘There’s some one rattling the
latch inside.’ Every one listened with all its ears, and every one stood
back as far from the door as the steps would allow.
The latch rattled, and clicked. Then the flap of the letter-box lifted
itself--every one saw it by the flickering light of the gas-lamp that
shone through the leafless lime-tree by the gate--a golden eye seemed to
wink at them through the letter-slit, and a cautious beak whispered--
‘Are you alone?’
‘It’s the Phoenix,’ said every one, in a voice so joyous, and so full of
relief, as to be a sort of whispered shout.
‘Hush!’ said the voice from the letter-box slit. ‘Your slaves have gone
a-merry-making. The latch of this portal is too stiff for my beak.
But at the side--the little window above the shelf whereon your bread
lies--it is not fastened.’
‘Righto!’ said Cyril.
And Anthea added, ‘I wish you’d meet us there, dear Phoenix.’
The children crept round to the pantry window. It is at the side of the
house, and there is a green gate labelled ‘Tradesmen’s Entrance’, which
is always kept bolted. But if you get one foot on the fence between you
and next door, and one on the handle of the gate, you are over before
you know where you are. This, at least, was the experience of Cyril and
Robert, and even, if the truth must be told, of Anthea and Jane. So in
almost no time all four were in the narrow gravelled passage that runs
between that house and the next.
Then Robert made a back, and Cyril hoisted himself up and got his
knicker-bockered knee on the concrete window-sill. He dived into the
pantry head first, as one dives into water, and his legs waved in the
air as he went, just as your legs do when you are first beginning
to learn to dive. The soles of his boots--squarish muddy
patches--disappeared.
‘Give me a leg up,’ said Robert to his sisters.
‘No, you don’t,’ said Jane firmly. ‘I’m not going to be left outside
here with just Anthea, and have something creep up behind us out of the
dark. Squirrel can go and open the back door.’
A light had sprung awake in the pantry. Cyril always said the Phoenix
turned the gas on with its beak, and lighted it with a waft of its wing;
but he was excited at the time, and perhaps he really did it himself
with matches, and then forgot all about it. He let the others in by the
back door. And when it had been bolted again the children went all over
the house and lighted every single gas-jet they could find. For they
couldn’t help feeling that this was just the dark dreary winter’s
evening when an armed burglar might easily be expected to appear at any
moment. There is nothing like light when you are afraid of burglars--or
of anything else, for that matter.
And when all the gas-jets were lighted it was quite clear that the
Phoenix had made no mistake, and that Eliza and cook were really out,
and that there was no one in the house except the four children, and the
Phoenix, and the carpet, and the blackbeetles who lived in the cupboards
on each side of the nursery fire-place. These last were very pleased
that the children had come home again, especially when Anthea had
lighted the nursery fire. But, as usual, the children treated the loving
little blackbeetles with coldness and disdain.
I wonder whether you know how to light a fire? I don’t mean how to
strike a match and set fire to the corners of the paper in a fire
someone has laid ready, but how to lay and light a fire all by yourself.
I will tell you how Anthea did it, and if ever you have to light one
yourself you may remember how it is done. First, she raked out the ashes
of the fire that had burned there a week ago--for Eliza had actually
never done this, though she had had plenty of time. In doing this Anthea
knocked her knuckle and made it bleed. Then she laid the largest and
handsomest cinders in the bottom of the grate. Then she took a sheet
of old newspaper (you ought never to light a fire with to-day’s
newspaper--it will not burn well, and there are other reasons against
it), and tore it into four quarters, and screwed each of these into a
loose ball, and put them on the cinders; then she got a bundle of wood
and broke the string, and stuck the sticks in so that their front ends
rested on the bars, and the back ends on the back of the paper balls.
In doing this she cut her finger slightly with the string, and when she
broke it, two of the sticks jumped up and hit her on the cheek. Then she
put more cinders and some bits of coal--no dust. She put most of that
on her hands, but there seemed to be enough left for her face. Then
she lighted the edges of the paper balls, and waited till she heard the
fizz-crack-crack-fizz of the wood as it began to burn. Then she went and
washed her hands and face under the tap in the back kitchen.
Of course, you need not bark your knuckles, or cut your finger, or
bruise your cheek with wood, or black yourself all over; but otherwise,
this is a very good way to light a fire in London. In the real country
fires are lighted in a different and prettier way.
But it is always good to wash your hands and face afterwards, wherever
you are.
While Anthea was delighting the poor little blackbeetles with the
cheerful blaze, Jane had set the table for--I was going to say tea, but
the meal of which I am speaking was not exactly tea. Let us call it a
tea-ish meal. There was tea, certainly, for Anthea’s fire blazed and
crackled so kindly that it really seemed to be affectionately inviting
the kettle to come and sit upon its lap. So the kettle was brought and
tea made. But no milk could be found--so every one had six lumps of
sugar to each cup instead. The things to eat, on the other hand, were
nicer than usual. The boys looked about very carefully, and found in
the pantry some cold tongue, bread, butter, cheese, and part of a cold
pudding--very much nicer than cook ever made when they were at home. And
in the kitchen cupboard was half a Christmassy cake, a pot of strawberry
jam, and about a pound of mixed candied fruit, with soft crumbly slabs
of delicious sugar in each cup of lemon, orange, or citron.
It was indeed, as Jane said, ‘a banquet fit for an Arabian Knight.’
The Phoenix perched on Robert’s chair, and listened kindly and
politely to all they had to tell it about their visit to Lyndhurst,
and underneath the table, by just stretching a toe down rather far, the
faithful carpet could be felt by all--even by Jane, whose legs were very
short.
‘Your slaves will not return to-night,’ said the Phoenix. ‘They sleep
under the roof of the cook’s stepmother’s aunt, who is, I gather,
hostess to a large party to-night in honour of her husband’s cousin’s
sister-in-law’s mother’s ninetieth birthday.’
‘I don’t think they ought to have gone without leave,’ said Anthea,
‘however many relations they have, or however old they are; but I
suppose we ought to wash up.’
‘It’s not our business about the leave,’ said Cyril, firmly, ‘but I
simply won’t wash up for them. We got it, and we’ll clear it away; and
then we’ll go somewhere on the carpet. It’s not often we get a chance
of being out all night. We can go right away to the other side of the
equator, to the tropical climes, and see the sun rise over the great
Pacific Ocean.’
‘Right you are,’ said Robert. ‘I always did want to see the Southern
Cross and the stars as big as gas-lamps.’
‘DON’T go,’ said Anthea, very earnestly, ‘because I COULDN’T. I’m SURE
mother wouldn’t like us to leave the house and I should hate to be left
here alone.’
‘I’d stay with you,’ said Jane loyally.
‘I know you would,’ said Anthea gratefully, ‘but even with you I’d much
rather not.’
‘Well,’ said Cyril, trying to be kind and amiable, ‘I don’t want you to
do anything you think’s wrong, BUT--’
He was silent; this silence said many things.
‘I don’t see,’ Robert was beginning, when Anthea interrupted--
‘I’m quite sure. Sometimes you just think a thing’s wrong, and sometimes
you KNOW. And this is a KNOW time.’
The Phoenix turned kind golden eyes on her and opened a friendly beak to
say--
‘When it is, as you say, a “know time”, there is no more to be said. And
your noble brothers would never leave you.’
‘Of course not,’ said Cyril rather quickly. And Robert said so too.
‘I myself,’ the Phoenix went on, ‘am willing to help in any way
possible. I will go personally--either by carpet or on the wing--and
fetch you anything you can think of to amuse you during the evening. In
order to waste no time I could go while you wash up.--Why,’ it went on
in a musing voice, ‘does one wash up teacups and wash down the stairs?’
‘You couldn’t wash stairs up, you know,’ said Anthea, ‘unless you began
at the bottom and went up feet first as you washed. I wish cook would
try that way for a change.’
‘I don’t,’ said Cyril, briefly. ‘I should hate the look of her
elastic-side boots sticking up.’
‘This is mere trifling,’ said the Phoenix. ‘Come, decide what I shall
fetch for you. I can get you anything you like.’
But of course they couldn’t decide. Many things were suggested--a
rocking-horse, jewelled chessmen, an elephant, a bicycle, a motor-car,
books with pictures, musical instruments, and many other things. But
a musical instrument is agreeable only to the player, unless he has
learned to play it really well; books are not sociable, bicycles cannot
be ridden without going out of doors, and the same is true of motor-cars
and elephants. Only two people can play chess at once with one set of
chessmen (and anyway it’s very much too much like lessons for a game),
and only one can ride on a rocking-horse. Suddenly, in the midst of the
discussion, the Phoenix spread its wings and fluttered to the floor, and
from there it spoke.
‘I gather,
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