Kipps - H. G. Wells (best books to read non fiction .txt) 📗

class="calibre1">5

The bus that plies between New Romney and Folkestone is painted a British red, and inscribed on either side with the word Tip-top’ in gold amidst voluptuous scrolls. It is a slow and portly bus; even as a young bus it must have been slow and portly. Below it swings a sort of hold, hung by chains between the wheels and in the summer time the top has garden seats. The front over those two dauntless, unhurrying horses rises in tiers like a theatre; there is first a seat for the driver and his company, and above that a seat, and above that, unless my memory plays me false, a seat. You sit in a sort of composition by some Italian painter—a celestial group of you. There are days when it doesn’t go—you have to find out. And so you get to New Romney. So you will continue to get to New Romney for many years, for the light railway concession along the coast is happily in the South Eastern Railway Company’s keeping, and the peace of the marsh is kept inviolate save for the bicycle bells of such as Kipps and I. This bus it was, this ruddy, venerable and, under God’s mercy, immortal bus, that came down the Folkestone hill with unflinching deliberation, and trundled through Sandgate and Hythe, and out into the windy spaces of the Marsh, with Kipps and all his fortunes on its brow.

You figure him there. He sat on the highest seat diametrically above the driver, and his head was spinning and spinning with champagne and this stupendous Tomfoolery of Luck; and his heart was swelling, swelling indeed at times as though it would burst him, and his face toward the sunlight was transfigured. He said never a word, but ever and again as he thought of this or that, he laughed. He seemed full of chuckles for a time, detached and independent chuckles, chuckles that rose and burst on him like bubbles in a wine… He held a banjo sceptre-fashion and resting on his knee. He had always wanted a banjo, now he had got one at Melchior’s, while he was waiting for the bus.

There sat beside him a young servant, who was sucking peppermint, and a little boy with a sniff whose flitting eyes showed him curious to know why ever and again Kipps laughed, and beside the driver were two young men in gaiters talking about ‘tegs.’ And there sat Kipps, all unsuspected, twelve hundred a year as it were, except for the protrusion of the banjo, disguised as a common young man, and the young man in gaiters, to the left of the driver, eyed Kipps and his banjo, and especially his banjo, ever and again, as if he found it and him, with his rapt face, an insoluble enigma. And many a King has ridden into a conquered city with a lesser sense of splendour than Kipps.

Their shadows grew long behind them, and their faces were transfigured in gold as they rumbled on towards the splendid west. The sun set before they had passed Dymchurch, and as they came lumbering into New Romney past the windmill the dusk had come.

The driver handed down the banjo and the portmanteau, and Kipps having paid him, ‘That’s aw right,’ he said to the change as a gentleman should, turned about, and ran the portmanteau smartly into old Kipps, whom the sound of the stopping of the bus had brought to the door of the shop in an aggressive mood and with his mouth full of supper.

”Ullo, Uncle, didn’t see you,’ said Kipps.

‘Blunderin’ ninny,’ said old Kipps. ‘What’s brought you here? Ain’t early closing, is it? Not Toosday?’

‘Got some news for you, Uncle,’ said Kipps, dropping the portmanteau.

‘Ain’t lost your situation, ‘ave you? What’s that you got there? I’m blowed if it ain’t a banjo, Goolord! Spendin’ your money on banjoes! Don’t put down your portmanty there— anyhow. Right in the way of everybody. I’m blowed if ever I saw such a boy as you’ve got lately. Here! Molly! And look here! What you got a portmanty for? Why! Goolord! You ain’t really lost your place, ‘ave you?’

‘Somethin’s happened,’ said Kipps, slightly dashed. ‘It’s all right, Uncle. I’ll tell you in a minute.’

Old Kipps took the banjo as his nephew picked up the portmanteau again.

The living-room door opened quickly, showing a table equipped with elaborate simplicity for supper, and Mrs. Kipps appeared.

‘If it ain’t young Artie!’ she said. ‘Why, whatever’s brought you ‘ome?’

”Ullo, Aunt,’ said Artie. ‘I’m coming in. I got somethin’ to tell you. I’ve ‘ad a bit of luck.’

He wouldn’t tell them all at once. He staggered with the portmanteau round the corner of the counter, set a bundle of children’s tin pails into clattering oscillation, and entered the little room. He deposited his luggage in the corner beside the tall clock, and turned to his aunt and uncle again. His aunt regarded him doubtfully; the yellow light from the little lamp on the table escaped above the shade, and lit her forehand and the tip of her nose. It would be all right in a minute. He wouldn’t tell them all at once. Old Kipps stood in the shop door with the banjo in his hand, breathing nosily. ‘The fact is, Aunt, I’ve ‘ad a bit of luck.’

‘You ain’t been backin’ gordless ‘orses, Artie?’ she asked.

‘No fear.’

‘It’s a draw he’s been in,’ said old Kipps, still panting from the impact of the portmanteau, ‘it’s a dratted draw. Jest look here, Molly. He’s won this ‘ere trashy banjer and throwd up his situation on the strength of it—that’s what he’s done. Goin’ about singing. Dash and plunge. Jest the very fault poor Pheamy always ‘ad. Blunder right in, and no one mustn’t stop ‘er!’

‘You ain’t thrown up your place, Artie, ‘ave you?’ said Mrs. Kipps.

Kipps perceived his opportunity. ‘I ‘ave,’ he said. ‘I’ve throwed it up.’

‘What for?’ said old Kipps.

‘So’s to learn the banjo!’

‘Goo Lord!’ said old Kipps, in horror to find himself verified.

‘I’m going about playing,’ said Kipps, with a giggle.

‘Goin’ to black my face, Aunt, and sing on the beach. I’m going to ‘ave a most tremenjous lark and earn any amount of money—you see. Twenty-six fousand pounds I’m going to earn just as easy as nothing!’

‘Kipps,’ said Mrs. Kipps, ‘he’s been drinking!’

They regarded their nephew across the supper table with long faces. Kipps exploded with laughter, and broke out again when his aunt shook her head very sadly at him. Then suddenly he fell grave. He felt he could keep it up no longer. ‘It’s all right, Aunt. Reely, I ain’t mad, and I ain’t been drinking. I been lef money. I been left twenty-six fousand pounds.’

Pause.

‘And you thrown up your place?’ said old Kipps.

‘Yes,’ said Kipps, ‘rather!’

‘And bort this banjer, put on your best noo trousers, and come right on ‘ere?’

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Kipps, ‘I—never—did!’

‘These ain’t my noo trousers, Aunt,’ said Kipps, regretfully. ‘My noo trousers wasn’t done.’

‘I shouldn’t ha’ thought that even you could ha’ been such a fool as that,’ said old Kipps.

Pause.

‘It’s all right,’ said Kipps, a little disconcerted by their distrustful solemnity. ‘It’s all right, reely! Twenny-six thousan’ pounds. And a ‘ouse.’

Old Kipps pursed his lips and shook his head.

‘A ‘ouse on the Leas. I could have gone there. Only I didn’t. I didn’t care to. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to come and tell you.’

‘How d’yer know the ‘ouse—?’

‘They told me.’

‘Well,’ said old Kipps, and nodded his head portentously towards his nephew, with the corners of his mouth pulled down in a strikingly discouraging way. ‘Well, you are a young Gaby.’

‘I didn’t think it of you, Artie!’ said Mrs. Kipps.

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

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

‘I dessay that young Quodling was in it,’ said Mrs. Kipps. ”E’s jest that sort.’

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

‘It’s somebody after your place, very likely,’ said old Kipps.

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

Still—perhaps a hundred pounds—

‘But,’ he said. ‘It’s all right, reely, Uncle. You don’t think—? I ‘ad a letter.’

‘Got up,’ said old Kipps.

‘But I answered it and went to a norfis.’

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

‘I saw a nold gent, Uncle—perfect gentleman. And ‘e told me all about it. Mos’ respectable ‘e was. Said ‘is name was Watson and Bean—leastways ‘e was Bean. Said it was lef me’

—Kipps suddenly dived into his breast pocket— ‘by my Grandfather—’

The old people started.

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

‘Waddy, ‘is name was,’ said Kipps, with his hand still deep in his pocket. ‘It was ‘is son was my father—’

‘Waddy!’ said old Kipps.

‘Waddy!’ said Mrs. Kipps.

‘She’d never say,’ said old Kipps.

There was a long silence.

Kipps fumbled with a letter, a crumpled advertisement and three banknotes. He hesitated between these items.

‘Why! That young chap what was arsting questions—’ said old Kipps, and regarded his wife with an eye of amazement.

‘Must ‘ave been,’ said Mrs. Kipps.

‘Must ‘ave been,’ said old Kipps.

‘James,’ said Mrs. Kipps, in an awe-stricken voice. ‘After all—perhaps—it’s true!’

”Ow much did you say?’ asked old Kipps. ”Ow much did you say ‘e’d lef you, me b’y?’

It was thrilling, though not quite in the way Kipps had expected. He answered almost meekly across the meagre supper-things, with his documentary evidence in his hand,—

‘Twelve ‘undred pounds.’ Proximately, he said. Twelve ‘undred pounds a year. ‘E made ‘is will jest before ‘e died—not mor’n a month ago. When ‘e was dying, ‘e seemed to change like, Mr. Bean said. ‘E’d never forgiven ‘is son, never—not till then. ‘Is son ‘ad died in Australia, years and years ago, and then ‘e ‘adn’t forgiven ‘im. You know—‘is son what was my father. But jest when ‘e was ill and dying ‘e seemed to get worried like, and longing for some one of ‘is own. And ‘e told Mr. Bean it was ‘im that had prevented them marrying. So ‘e thought. That’s ‘ow it all come about…’

6

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

‘Y’ought to ‘ave a bit o’ shootin’ somewhere,’ said old Kipps.

‘It’s your duty to marry into a county