CHAPTER 11. THE BEGINNING OF THE END
'Well, I MUST say,' mother said, looking at the wishing carpet as itlay, all darned and mended and backed with shiny American cloth, on thefloor of the nursery--'I MUST say I've never in my life bought such abad bargain as that carpet.'
A soft 'Oh!' of contradiction sprang to the lips of Cyril, Robert, Jane,and Anthea. Mother looked at them quickly, and said--
'Well, of course, I see you've mended it very nicely, and that was sweetof you, dears.'
'The boys helped too,' said the dears, honourably.
'But, still--twenty-two and ninepence! It ought to have lasted foryears. It's simply dreadful now. Well, never mind, darlings, you'vedone your best. I think we'll have coconut matting next time. A carpetdoesn't have an easy life of it in this room, does it?'
'It's not our fault, mother, is it, that our boots are the reallyreliable kind?' Robert asked the question more in sorrow than in anger.
'No, dear, we can't help our boots,' said mother, cheerfully, 'but wemight change them when we come in, perhaps. It's just an idea of mine.I wouldn't dream of scolding on the very first morning after I've comehome. Oh, my Lamb, how could you?'
This conversation was at breakfast, and the Lamb had been beautifullygood until every one was looking at the carpet, and then it was for himbut the work of a moment to turn a glass dish of syrupy blackberry jamupside down on his young head. It was the work of a good many minutesand several persons to get the jam off him again, and this interestingwork took people's minds off the carpet, and nothing more was said justthen about its badness as a bargain and about what mother hoped for fromcoconut matting.
When the Lamb was clean again he had to be taken care of while motherrumpled her hair and inked her fingers and made her head ache over thedifficult and twisted house-keeping accounts which cook gave her ondirty bits of paper, and which were supposed to explain how it was thatcook had only fivepence-half-penny and a lot of unpaid bills left outof all the money mother had sent her for house-keeping. Mother was veryclever, but even she could not quite understand the cook's accounts.
The Lamb was very glad to have his brothers and sisters to play withhim. He had not forgotten them a bit, and he made them play all the oldexhausting games: 'Whirling Worlds', where you swing the baby round andround by his hands; and 'Leg and Wing', where you swing him from sideto side by one ankle and one wrist. There was also climbing Vesuvius.In this game the baby walks up you, and when he is standing on yourshoulders, you shout as loud as you can, which is the rumbling of theburning mountain, and then tumble him gently on to the floor, and rollhim there, which is the destruction of Pompeii.
'All the same, I wish we could decide what we'd better say next timemother says anything about the carpet,' said Cyril, breathlessly ceasingto be a burning mountain.
'Well, you talk and decide,' said Anthea; 'here, you lovely ducky Lamb.Come to Panther and play Noah's Ark.'
The Lamb came with his pretty hair all tumbled and his face all dustyfrom the destruction of Pompeii, and instantly became a baby snake,hissing and wriggling and creeping in Anthea's arms, as she said--
'I love my little baby snake, He hisses when he is awake, He creeps with such a wriggly creep, He wriggles even in his sleep.'
'Crocky,' said the Lamb, and showed all his little teeth. So Anthea wenton--
'I love my little crocodile, I love his truthful toothful smile; It is so wonderful and wide, I like to see it--FROM OUTSIDE.'
'Well, you see,' Cyril was saying; 'it's just the old bother. Mothercan't believe the real true truth about the carpet, and--'
'You speak sooth, O Cyril,' remarked the Phoenix, coming out from thecupboard where the blackbeetles lived, and the torn books, and thebroken slates, and odd pieces of toys that had lost the rest ofthemselves. 'Now hear the wisdom of Phoenix, the son of the Phoenix--'
'There is a society called that,' said Cyril.
'Where is it? And what is a society?' asked the bird.
'It's a sort of joined-together lot of people--a sort of brotherhood--akind of--well, something very like your temple, you know, only quitedifferent.'
'I take your meaning,' said the Phoenix. 'I would fain see these callingthemselves Sons of the Phoenix.'
'But what about your words of wisdom?'
'Wisdom is always welcome,' said the Phoenix.
'Pretty Polly!' remarked the Lamb, reaching his hands towards the goldenspeaker.
The Phoenix modestly retreated behind Robert, and Anthea hastened todistract the attention of the Lamb by murmuring--
"I love my little baby rabbit; But oh! he has a dreadful habit Of paddling out among the rocks And soaking both his bunny socks.'
'I don't think you'd care about the sons of the Phoenix, really,' saidRobert. 'I have heard that they don't do anything fiery. They only drinka great deal. Much more than other people, because they drink lemonadeand fizzy things, and the more you drink of those the more good youget.'
'In your mind, perhaps,' said Jane; 'but it wouldn't be good in yourbody. You'd get too balloony.'
The Phoenix yawned.
'Look here,' said Anthea; 'I really have an idea. This isn't like acommon carpet. It's very magic indeed. Don't you think, if we put Tatchoon it, and then gave it a rest, the magic part of it might grow, likehair is supposed to do?'
'It might,' said Robert; 'but I should think paraffin would do aswell--at any rate as far as the smell goes, and that seems to be thegreat thing about Tatcho.'
But with all its faults Anthea's idea was something to do, and they didit.
It was Cyril who fetched the Tatcho bottle from father's washhand-stand.But the bottle had not much in it.
'We mustn't take it all,' Jane said, 'in case father's hair began tocome off suddenly. If he hadn't anything to put on it, it might alldrop off before Eliza had time to get round to the chemist's for anotherbottle. It would be dreadful to have a bald father, and it would all beour fault.'
'And wigs are very expensive, I believe,' said Anthea. 'Look here, leaveenough in the bottle to wet father's head all over with in case anyemergency emerges--and let's make up with paraffin. I expect it's thesmell that does the good really--and the smell's exactly the same.'
So a small teaspoonful of the Tatcho was put on the edges of the worstdarn in the carpet and rubbed carefully into the roots of the hairs ofit, and all the parts that there was not enough Tatcho for had paraffinrubbed into them with a piece of flannel. Then the flannel was burned.It made a gay flame, which delighted the Phoenix and the Lamb.
'How often,' said mother, opening the door--'how often am I to tell youthat you are NOT to play with paraffin? What have you been doing?'
'We have burnt a paraffiny rag,' Anthea answered.
It was no use telling mother what they had done to the carpet. She didnot know it was a magic carpet, and no one wants to be laughed at fortrying to mend an ordinary carpet with lamp-oil.
'Well, don't do it again,' said mother. 'And now, away with melancholy!Father has sent a telegram. Look!' She held it out, and the children,holding it by its yielding corners, read--
'Box for kiddies at Garrick. Stalls for us, Haymarket. Meet CharingCross, 6.30.'
'That means,' said mother, 'that you're going to see "The Water Babies"all by your happy selves, and father and I will take you and fetch you.Give me the Lamb, dear, and you and Jane put clean lace in your redevening frocks, and I shouldn't wonder if you found they wanted ironing.This paraffin smell is ghastly. Run and get out your frocks.'
The frocks did want ironing--wanted it rather badly, as it happened;for, being of tomato-Coloured Liberty silk, they had been found veryuseful for tableaux vivants when a red dress was required for CardinalRichelieu. They were very nice tableaux, these, and I wish I could tellyou about them; but one cannot tell everything in a story. You wouldhave been specially interested in hearing about the tableau of thePrinces in the Tower, when one of the pillows burst, and th
e youthfulPrinces were so covered with feathers that the picture might very wellhave been called 'Michaelmas Eve; or, Plucking the Geese'.
Ironing the dresses and sewing the lace in occupied some time, and noone was dull, because there was the theatre to look forward to, and alsothe possible growth of hairs on the carpet, for which every one keptlooking anxiously. By four o'clock Jane was almost sure that severalhairs were beginning to grow.
The Phoenix perched on the fender, and its conversation, as usual, wasentertaining and instructive--like school prizes are said to be. But itseemed a little absent-minded, and even a little sad.
'Don't you feel well, Phoenix, dear?' asked Anthea, stooping to take aniron off the fire.
'I am not sick,' replied the golden bird, with a gloomy shake of thehead; 'but I am getting old.'
'Why, you've hardly been hatched any time at all.'
'Time,' remarked the Phoenix, 'is measured by heartbeats. I'm sure thepalpitations I've had since I've known you are enough to blanch thefeathers of any bird.'
'But I thought you lived 500 years,' said Robert, and you've hardlybegun this set of years. Think of all the time that's before you.'
'Time,' said the Phoenix, 'is, as you are probably aware, merely aconvenient fiction. There is no such thing as time. I have lived inthese two months at a pace which generously counterbalances 500 years oflife in the desert. I am old, I am weary. I feel as if I ought to lay myegg, and lay me down to my fiery sleep. But unless I'm careful I shallbe hatched again instantly, and that is a misfortune which I reallydo not think I COULD endure. But do not let me intrude these desperatepersonal reflections on your youthful happiness. What is the show at thetheatre to-night? Wrestlers? Gladiators? A combat of cameleopards andunicorns?'
'I don't think so,' said Cyril; 'it's called "The Water Babies", andif it's like the book there isn't any gladiating in it. There arechimney-sweeps and professors, and a lobster and an otter and a salmon,and children living in the water.'
'It sounds chilly.' The Phoenix shivered, and went to sit on the tongs.
'I don't suppose there will be REAL water,' said Jane. 'And theatres arevery warm and pretty, with a lot of gold and lamps. Wouldn't you like tocome with us?'
'_I_ was just going to say that,' said Robert, in injured tones, 'onlyI know how rude it is to interrupt. Do come, Phoenix, old chap; it willcheer you up. It'll make you laugh like any thing. Mr Bourchier alwaysmakes ripping plays. You ought to have seen "Shock-headed Peter" lastyear.'
'Your words are strange,' said the Phoenix, 'but I will come with you.The revels of this Bourchier, of whom you speak, may help me to forgetthe weight of my years.' So that evening the Phoenix snugged inside thewaistcoat of Robert's Etons--a very tight fit it seemed both to Robertand to the Phoenix--and was taken to the play.
Robert had to pretend to be cold at the glittering, many-mirroredrestaurant where they ate dinner, with father in evening dress, witha very shiny white shirt-front, and mother looking lovely in her greyevening dress, that changes into pink and green when she moves. Robertpretended that he was too cold to take off his great-coat, and so satsweltering through what would otherwise have been a most thrilling meal.He felt that he was a blot on the smart beauty of the family, and hehoped the Phoenix knew what he was suffering for its sake. Of course,we are all pleased to suffer for the sake of others, but we like themto know it unless we are the very best and noblest kind of people, andRobert was just ordinary.
Father was full of jokes and fun, and every one laughed all the time,even with their mouths full, which is not manners. Robert thought fatherwould not have been quite so funny about his keeping his over-coat on iffather had known all the truth. And there Robert was probably right.
When dinner was finished to the last grape and the last paddle in thefinger glasses--for it was a really truly grown-up dinner--the childrenwere taken to the theatre, guided to a box close to the stage, and left.
Father's parting words were: 'Now, don't you stir out of this box,whatever you do. I shall be back before the end of the play. Be goodand you will be happy. Is this zone torrid enough for the abandonment ofgreat-coats, Bobs? No? Well, then, I should say you were sickening forsomething--mumps or measles or thrush or teething. Goodbye.'
He went, and Robert was at last able to remove his coat, mop hisperspiring brow, and release the crushed and dishevelled Phoenix. Roberthad to arrange his damp hair at the looking-glass at the back of thebox, and the Phoenix had to preen its disordered feathers for some timebefore either of them was fit to be seen.
They were very, very early. When the lights went up fully, the Phoenix,balancing itself on the gilded back of a chair, swayed in ecstasy.
'How fair a scene is this!' it murmured; 'how far fairer than my temple!Or have I guessed aright? Have you brought me hither to lift up my heartwith emotions of joyous surprise? Tell me, my Robert, is it not thatthis, THIS is my true temple, and the other was but a humble shrinefrequented by outcasts?'
'I don't know about outcasts,' said Robert, 'but you can call this yourtemple if you like. Hush! the music is beginning.'
I am not going to tell you about the play. As I said before, one can'ttell everything, and no doubt you saw 'The Water Babies' yourselves. Ifyou did not it was a shame, or, rather, a pity.
What I must tell you is that, though Cyril and Jane and Robert andAnthea enjoyed it as much as any children possibly could, the pleasureof the Phoenix was far, far greater than theirs.
'This is indeed my temple,' it said again and again. 'What radiantrites! And all to do honour to me!'
The songs in the play it took to be hymns in its honour. The choruseswere choric songs in its praise. The electric lights, it said, weremagic torches lighted for its sake, and it was so charmed with thefootlights that the children could hardly persuade it to sit still. Butwhen the limelight was shown it could contain its approval no longer. Itflapped its golden wings, and cried in a voice that could be heard allover the theatre:
'Well done, my servants! Ye have my favour and my countenance!'
Little Tom on the stage stopped short in what he was saying. A deepbreath was drawn by hundreds of lungs, every eye in the house turned tothe box where the luckless children cringed, and most people hissed, orsaid 'Shish!' or 'Turn them out!'
Then the play went on, and an attendant presently came to the box andspoke wrathfully.
'It wasn't us, indeed it wasn't,' said Anthea, earnestly; 'it was thebird.'
The man said well, then, they must keep their bird very quiet.'Disturbing every one like this,' he said.
'It won't do it again,' said Robert, glancing imploringly at the goldenbird; 'I'm sure it won't.'
'You have my leave to depart,' said the Phoenix gently.
'Well, he is a beauty, and no mistake,' said the attendant, 'only I'dcover him up during the acts. It upsets the performance.'
And he went.
'Don't speak again, there's a dear,' said Anthea; 'you wouldn't like tointerfere with your own temple, would you?'
So now the Phoenix was quiet, but it kept whispering to the children. Itwanted to know why there was no altar, no fire, no incense, and becameso excited and fretful and tiresome that four at least of the party offive wished deeply that it had been left at home.
What happened next was entirely the fault of the Phoenix. It was notin the least the fault of the theatre people, and no one could everunderstand afterwards how it did happen. No one, that is, except theguilty bird itself and the four children. The Phoenix was balancingitself on the gilt back of the chair, swaying backwards and forwards andup and down, as you may see your own domestic parrot do. I mean the greyone with the red tail. All eyes were on the stage, where the lobsterwas delighting the audience with that gem of a song, 'If you can't walkstraight, walk sideways!' when the Phoenix murmured warmly--
'No altar, no fire, no incense!' and then, before any of the childrencould even begin to think of stopping it, it spread its bright wings andswept round the theatre, brushing its gleamin
g feathers against delicatehangings and gilded woodwork.
It seemed to have made but one circular wing-sweep, such as you may seea gull make over grey water on a stormy day. Next moment it was perchedagain on the chair-back--and all round the theatre, where it had passed,little sparks shone like tinsel seeds, then little smoke wreaths curledup like growing plants--little flames opened like flower-buds. Peoplewhispered--then people shrieked.
'Fire! Fire!' The curtain went down--the lights went up.
'Fire!' cried every one, and made for the doors.
'A magnificent idea!' said the Phoenix, complacently. 'An enormousaltar--fire supplied free of charge. Doesn't the incense smelldelicious?'
The only smell was the stifling smell of smoke, of burning silk, orscorching varnish.
The little flames had opened now into great flame-flowers. The people inthe theatre were shouting and pressing towards the doors.
'Oh, how COULD you!' cried Jane. 'Let's get out.'
'Father said stay here,' said Anthea, very pale, and trying to speak inher ordinary voice.
'He didn't mean stay and be roasted,' said Robert. 'No boys on burningdecks for me, thank you.'
'Not much,' said Cyril, and he opened the door of the box.
But a fierce waft of smoke and hot air made him shut it again. It wasnot possible to get out that way.
They looked over the front of the box. Could they climb down?
It would be possible, certainly; but would they be much better off?
'Look at the people,' moaned Anthea; 'we couldn't get through.'
And, indeed, the crowd round the doors looked as thick as flies in thejam-making season.
'I wish we'd never seen the Phoenix,' cried Jane.
Even at that awful moment Robert looked round to see if the birdhad overheard a speech which, however natural, was hardly polite orgrateful.
The Phoenix was gone.
'Look here,' said Cyril, 'I've read about fires in papers; I'm sure it'sall right. Let's wait here, as father said.'
'We can't do anything else,' said Anthea bitterly.
'Look here,' said Robert, 'I'm NOT frightened--no, I'm not. The Phoenixhas never been a skunk yet, and I'm certain it'll see us throughsomehow. I believe in the Phoenix!'
'The Phoenix thanks you, O Robert,' said a golden voice at his feet, andthere was the Phoenix itself, on the Wishing Carpet.
'Quick!' it said. 'Stand on those portions of the carpet which are trulyantique and authentic--and--'
A sudden jet of flame stopped its words. Alas! the Phoenix hadunconsciously warmed to its subject, and in the unintentional heat ofthe moment had set fire to the paraffin with which that morning thechildren had anointed the carpet. It burned merrily. The children triedin vain to stamp it out. They had to stand back and let it burn itselfout. When the paraffin had burned away it was found that it had takenwith it all the darns of Scotch heather-mixture fingering. Only thefabric of the old carpet was left--and that was full of holes.
'Come,' said the Phoenix, 'I'm cool now.'
The four children got on to what was left of the carpet. Very carefulthey were not to leave a leg or a hand hanging over one of the holes. Itwas very hot--the theatre was a pit of fire. Every one else had got out.
Jane had to sit on Anthea's lap.
'Home!' said Cyril, and instantly the cool draught from under thenursery door played upon their legs as they sat. They were all onthe carpet still, and the carpet was lying in its proper place on thenursery floor, as calm and unmoved as though it had never been to thetheatre or taken part in a fire in its life.
Four long breaths of deep relief were instantly breathed. The draughtwhich they had never liked before was for the moment quite pleasant. Andthey were safe. And every one else was safe. The theatre had been quiteempty when they left. Every one was sure of that.
They presently found themselves all talking at once. Somehow none oftheir adventures had given them so much to talk about. None other hadseemed so real.
'Did you notice--?' they said, and 'Do you remember--?'
When suddenly Anthea's face turned pale under the dirt which it hadcollected on it during the fire.
'Oh,' she cried, 'mother and father! Oh, how awful! They'll think we'reburned to cinders. Oh, let's go this minute and tell them we aren't.'
'We should only miss them,' said the sensible Cyril.
'Well--YOU go then,' said Anthea, 'or I will. Only do wash your facefirst. Mother will be sure to think you are burnt to a cinder if shesees you as black as that, and she'll faint or be ill or something. Oh,I wish we'd never got to know that Phoenix.'
'Hush!' said Robert; 'it's no use being rude to the bird. I suppose itcan't help its nature. Perhaps we'd better wash too. Now I come to thinkof it my hands are rather--'
No one had noticed the Phoenix since it had bidden them to step on thecarpet. And no one noticed that no one had noticed.
All were partially clean, and Cyril was just plunging into hisgreat-coat to go and look for his parents--he, and not unjustly, calledit looking for a needle in a bundle of hay--when the sound of father'slatchkey in the front door sent every one bounding up the stairs.
'Are you all safe?' cried mother's voice; 'are you all safe?' and thenext moment she was kneeling on the linoleum of the hall, trying tokiss four damp children at once, and laughing and crying by turns, whilefather stood looking on and saying he was blessed or something.
'But how did you guess we'd come home,' said Cyril, later, when everyone was calm enough for talking.
'Well, it was rather a rum thing. We heard the Garrick was on fire, andof course we went straight there,' said father, briskly. 'We couldn'tfind you, of course--and we couldn't get in--but the firemen toldus every one was safely out. And then I heard a voice at my ear say,"Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane"--and something touched me on theshoulder. It was a great yellow pigeon, and it got in the way of myseeing who'd spoken. It fluttered off, and then some one said in theother ear, "They're safe at home"; and when I turned again, to see whoit was speaking, hanged if there wasn't that confounded pigeon on myother shoulder. Dazed by the fire, I suppose. Your mother said it wasthe voice of--'
'I said it was the bird that spoke,' said mother, 'and so it was. Or atleast I thought so then. It wasn't a pigeon. It was an orange-colouredcockatoo. I don't care who it was that spoke. It was true and you'resafe.'
Mother began to cry again, and father said bed was a good place afterthe pleasures of the stage.
So every one went there.
Robert had a talk to the Phoenix that night.
'Oh, very well,' said the bird, when Robert had said what he felt,'didn't you know that I had power over fire? Do not distress yourself.I, like my high priests in Lombard Street, can undo the work of flames.Kindly open the casement.'
It flew out.
That was why the papers said next day that the fire at the theatre haddone less damage than had been anticipated. As a matter of fact it haddone none, for the Phoenix spent the night in putting things straight.How the management accounted for this, and how many of the theatreofficials still believe that they were mad on that night will never beknown.
Next day mother saw the burnt holes in the carpet.
'It caught where it was paraffiny,' said Anthea.
'I must get rid of that carpet at once,' said mother.
But what the children said in sad whispers to each other, as theypondered over last night's events, was--
'We must get rid of that Phoenix.'
CHAPTER 12. THE END OF THE END
'Egg, toast, tea, milk, tea-cup and saucer, egg-spoon, knife,butter--that's all, I think,' remarked Anthea, as she put the lasttouches to mother's breakfast-tray, and went, very carefully up thestairs, feeling for every step with her toes, and holding on to the traywith all her fingers. She crept into mother's room and set the tray on achair. Then she pulled one of the blinds up very softly.
'Is your head better, mammy dear?' she asked, in the soft little voicethat
she kept expressly for mother's headaches. 'I've brought yourbrekkie, and I've put the little cloth with clover-leaves on it, the oneI made you.'
'That's very nice,' said mother sleepily.
Anthea knew exactly what to do for mothers with headaches who hadbreakfast in bed. She fetched warm water and put just enough eau deCologne in it, and bathed mother's face and hands with the sweet-scentedwater. Then mother was able to think about breakfast.
'But what's the matter with my girl?' she asked, when her eyes got usedto the light.
'Oh, I'm so sorry you're ill,' Anthea said. 'It's that horrible fire andyou being so frightened. Father said so. And we all feel as if it wasour faults. I can't explain, but--'
'It wasn't your fault a bit, you darling goosie,' mother said. 'Howcould it be?'
'That's just what I can't tell you,' said Anthea. 'I haven't gota futile brain like you and father, to think of ways of explainingeverything.'
Mother laughed.
'My futile brain--or did you mean fertile?--anyway, it feels very stiffand sore this morning--but I shall be quite all right by and by. Anddon't be a silly little pet girl. The fire wasn't your faults. No; Idon't want the egg, dear. I'll go to sleep again, I think. Don't youworry. And tell cook not to bother me about meals. You can order whatyou like for lunch.'
Anthea closed the door very mousily, and instantly went downstairs andordered what she liked for lunch. She ordered a pair of turkeys, a largeplum-pudding, cheese-cakes, and almonds and raisins.
Cook told her to go along, do. And she might as well not have orderedanything, for when lunch came it was just hashed mutton and semolinapudding, and cook had forgotten the sippets for the mutton hash and thesemolina pudding was burnt.
When Anthea rejoined the others she found them all plunged in the gloomwhere she was herself. For every one knew that the days of the carpetwere now numbered. Indeed, so worn was it that you could almost havenumbered its threads.
So that now, after nearly a month of magic happenings, the time was athand when life would have to go on in the dull, ordinary way and Jane,Robert, Anthea, and Cyril would be just in the same position as theother children who live in Camden Town, the children whom these four hadso often pitied, and perhaps a little despised.
'We shall be just like them,' Cyril said.
'Except,' said Robert, 'that we shall have more things to remember andbe sorry we haven't got.'
'Mother's going to send away the carpet as soon as she's well enough tosee about that coconut matting. Fancy us with coconut-matting--us! Andwe've walked under live coconut-trees on the island where you can't havewhooping-cough.'
'Pretty island,' said the Lamb; 'paint-box sands and sea all shinysparkly.'
His brothers and sisters had often wondered whether he remembered thatisland. Now they knew that he did.
'Yes,' said Cyril; 'no more cheap return trips by carpet for us--that'sa dead cert.'
They were all talking about the carpet, but what they were all thinkingabout was the Phoenix.
The golden bird had been so kind, so friendly, so polite, soinstructive--and now it had set fire to a theatre and made mother ill.
Nobody blamed the bird. It had acted in a perfectly natural manner. Butevery one saw that it must not be asked to prolong its visit. Indeed, inplain English it must be asked to go!
The four children felt like base spies and treacherous friends; and eachin its mind was saying who ought not to be the one to tell the Phoenixthat there could no longer be a place for it in that happy home inCamden Town. Each child was quite sure that one of them ought to speakout in a fair and manly way, but nobody wanted to be the one.
They could not talk the whole thing over as they would have liked to do,because the Phoenix itself was in the cupboard, among the blackbeetlesand the odd shoes and the broken chessmen.
But Anthea tried.
'It's very horrid. I do hate thinking things about people, and not beingable to say the things you're thinking because of the way they wouldfeel when they thought what things you were thinking, and wonderedwhat they'd done to make you think things like that, and why you werethinking them.'
Anthea was so anxious that the Phoenix should not understand what shesaid that she made a speech completely baffling to all. It was not tillshe pointed to the cupboard in which all believed the Phoenix to be thatCyril understood.
'Yes,' he said, while Jane and Robert were trying to tell each other howdeeply they didn't understand what Anthea were saying; 'but after recenteventfulnesses a new leaf has to be turned over, and, after all,mother is more important than the feelings of any of the lower forms ofcreation, however unnatural.'
'How beautifully you do do it,' said Anthea, absently beginning to builda card-house for the Lamb--'mixing up what you're saying, I mean. Weought to practise doing it so as to be ready for mysterious occasions.We're talking about THAT,' she said to Jane and Robert, frowning, andnodding towards the cupboard where the Phoenix was. Then Robert and Janeunderstood, and each opened its mouth to speak.
'Wait a minute,' said Anthea quickly; 'the game is to twist up what youwant to say so that no one can understand what you're saying except thepeople you want to understand it, and sometimes not them.'
'The ancient philosophers,' said a golden voice, 'Well understood theart of which you speak.'
Of course it was the Phoenix, who had not been in the cupboard at all,but had been cocking a golden eye at them from the cornice during thewhole conversation.
'Pretty dickie!' remarked the Lamb. 'CANARY dickie!'
'Poor misguided infant,' said the Phoenix.
There was a painful pause; the four could not but think it likely thatthe Phoenix had understood their very veiled allusions, accompanied asthey had been by gestures indicating the cupboard. For the Phoenix wasnot wanting in intelligence.
'We were just saying--' Cyril began, and I hope he was not going tosay anything but the truth. Whatever it was he did not say it, for thePhoenix interrupted him, and all breathed more freely as it spoke.
'I gather,' it said, 'that you have some tidings of a fatal nature tocommunicate to our degraded black brothers who run to and fro for everyonder.' It pointed a claw at the cupboard, where the blackbeetleslived.
'Canary TALK,' said the Lamb joyously; 'go and show mammy.'
He wriggled off Anthea's lap.
'Mammy's asleep,' said Jane, hastily. 'Come and be wild beasts in a cageunder the table.'
But the Lamb caught his feet and hands, and even his head, so often andso deeply in the holes of the carpet that the cage, or table, had to bemoved on to the linoleum, and the carpet lay bare to sight with all itshorrid holes.
'Ah,' said the bird, 'it isn't long for this world.'
'No,' said Robert; 'everything comes to an end. It's awful.'
'Sometimes the end is peace,' remarked the Phoenix. 'I imagine thatunless it comes soon the end of your carpet will be pieces.'
'Yes,' said Cyril, respectfully kicking what was left of the carpet. Themovement of its bright colours caught the eye of the Lamb, who went downon all fours instantly and began to pull at the red and blue threads.
'Aggedydaggedygaggedy,' murmured the Lamb; 'daggedy ag ag ag!'
And before any one could have winked (even if they had wanted to, and itwould not have been of the slightest use) the middle of the floor showedbare, an island of boards surrounded by a sea of linoleum. The magiccarpet was gone, AND SO WAS THE LAMB!
There was a horrible silence. The Lamb--the baby, all alone--had beenwafted away on that untrustworthy carpet, so full of holes and magic.And no one could know where he was. And no one could follow him becausethere was now no carpet to follow on.
Jane burst into tears, but Anthea, though pale and frantic, wasdry-eyed.
'It MUST be a dream,' she said.
'That's what the clergyman said,' remarked Robert forlornly; 'but itwasn't, and it isn't.'
'But the Lamb never wished,' said Cyril; 'he was only talking Bosh.'
'The c
arpet understands all speech,' said the Phoenix, 'even Bosh. Iknow not this Boshland, but be assured that its tongue is not unknown tothe carpet.'
'Do you mean, then,' said Anthea, in white terror, 'that when he wassaying "Agglety dag," or whatever it was, that he meant something byit?'
'All speech has meaning,' said the Phoenix.
'There I think you're wrong,' said Cyril; 'even people who talk Englishsometimes say things that don't mean anything in particular.'
'Oh, never mind that now,' moaned Anthea; 'you think "Aggety dag" meantsomething to him and the carpet?'
'Beyond doubt it held the same meaning to the carpet as to the lucklessinfant,' the Phoenix said calmly.
'And WHAT did it mean? Oh WHAT?'
'Unfortunately,' the bird rejoined, 'I never studied Bosh.'
Jane sobbed noisily, but the others were calm with what is sometimescalled the calmness of despair. The Lamb was gone--the Lamb, their ownprecious baby brother--who had never in his happy little life been for amoment out of the sight of eyes that loved him--he was gone. He had gonealone into the great world with no other companion and protector than acarpet with holes in it. The children had never really understoodbefore what an enormously big place the world is. And the Lamb might beanywhere in it!
'And it's no use going to look for him.' Cyril, in flat and wretchedtones, only said what the others were thinking.
'Do you wish him to return?' the Phoenix asked; it seemed to speak withsome surprise.
'Of course we do!' cried everybody.
'Isn't he more trouble than he's worth?' asked the bird doubtfully.
'No, no. Oh, we do want him back! We do!'
'Then,' said the wearer of gold plumage, 'if you'll excuse me, I'll justpop out and see what I can do.'
Cyril flung open the window, and the Phoenix popped out.
'Oh, if only mother goes on sleeping! Oh, suppose she wakes up and wantsthe Lamb! Oh, suppose the servants come! Stop crying, Jane. It's noearthly good. No, I'm not crying myself--at least I wasn't till you saidso, and I shouldn't anyway if--if there was any mortal thing we coulddo. Oh, oh, oh!'
Cyril and Robert were boys, and boys never cry, of course. Still, theposition was a terrible one, and I do not wonder that they made faces intheir efforts to behave in a really manly way.
And at this awful moment mother's bell rang.
A breathless stillness held the children. Then Anthea dried her eyes.She looked round her and caught up the poker. She held it out to Cyril.
'Hit my hand hard,' she said; 'I must show mother some reason for myeyes being like they are. Harder,' she cried as Cyril gently tapped herwith the iron handle. And Cyril, agitated and trembling, nerved himselfto hit harder, and hit very much harder than he intended.
Anthea screamed.
'Oh, Panther, I didn't mean to hurt, really,' cried Cyril, clatteringthe poker back into the fender.
'It's--all--right,' said Anthea breathlessly, clasping the hurt handwith the one that wasn't hurt; 'it's--getting--red.'
It was--a round red and blue bump was rising on the back of it. 'Now,Robert,' she said, trying to breathe more evenly, 'you go out--oh, Idon't know where--on to the dustbin--anywhere--and I shall tell motheryou and the Lamb are out.'
Anthea was now ready to deceive her mother for as long as ever shecould. Deceit is very wrong, we know, but it seemed to Anthea that itwas her plain duty to keep her mother from being frightened about theLamb as long as possible. And the Phoenix might help.
'It always has helped,' Robert said; 'it got us out of the tower, andeven when it made the fire in the theatre it got us out all right. I'mcertain it will manage somehow.'
Mother's bell rang again.
'Oh, Eliza's never answered it,' cried Anthea; 'she never does. Oh, Imust go.'
And she went.
Her heart beat bumpingly as she climbed the stairs. Mother would becertain to notice her eyes--well, her hand would account for that. Butthe Lamb--
'No, I must NOT think of the Lamb, she said to herself, and bit hertongue till her eyes watered again, so as to give herself somethingelse to think of. Her arms and legs and back, and even her tear-reddenedface, felt stiff with her resolution not to let mother be worried if shecould help it.
She opened the door softly.
'Yes, mother?' she said.
'Dearest,' said mother, 'the Lamb--'
Anthea tried to be brave. She tried to say that the Lamb and Robert wereout. Perhaps she tried too hard. Anyway, when she opened her mouth nowords came. So she stood with it open. It seemed easier to keep fromcrying with one's mouth in that unusual position.
'The Lamb,' mother went on; 'he was very good at first, but he's pulledthe toilet-cover off the dressing-table with all the brushes andpots and things, and now he's so quiet I'm sure he's in some dreadfulmischief. And I can't see him from here, and if I'd got out of bed tosee I'm sure I should have fainted.'
'Do you mean he's HERE?' said Anthea.
'Of course he's here,' said mother, a little impatiently. 'Where did youthink he was?'
Anthea went round the foot of the big mahogany bed. There was a pause.
'He's not here NOW,' she said.
That he had been there was plain, from the toilet-cover on the floor,the scattered pots and bottles, the wandering brushes and combs, allinvolved in the tangle of ribbons and laces which an open drawer hadyielded to the baby's inquisitive fingers.
'He must have crept out, then,' said mother; 'do keep him with you,there's a darling. If I don't get some sleep I shall be a wreck whenfather comes home.'
Anthea closed the door softly. Then she tore downstairs and burst intothe nursery, crying--
'He must have wished he was with mother. He's been there all the time."Aggety dag--"'
The unusual word was frozen on her lip, as people say in books.
For there, on the floor, lay the carpet, and on the carpet, surroundedby his brothers and by Jane, sat the Lamb. He had covered his face andclothes with vaseline and violet powder, but he was easily recognizablein spite of this disguise.
'You are right,' said the Phoenix, who was also present; 'it is evidentthat, as you say, "Aggety dag" is Bosh for "I want to be where my motheris," and so the faithful carpet understood it.'
'But how,' said Anthea, catching up the Lamb and hugging him--'how didhe get back here?'
'Oh,' said the Phoenix, 'I flew to the Psammead and wished that yourinfant brother were restored to your midst, and immediately it was so.'
'Oh, I am glad, I am glad!' cried Anthea, still hugging the baby. 'Oh,you darling! Shut up, Jane! I don't care HOW much he comes off onme! Cyril! You and Robert roll that carpet up and put it in thebeetle-cupboard. He might say "Aggety dag" again, and it might meansomething quite different next time. Now, my Lamb, Panther'll clean youa little. Come on.'
'I hope the beetles won't go wishing,' said Cyril, as they rolled up thecarpet.
Two days later mother was well enough to go out, and that evening thecoconut matting came home. The children had talked and talked, andthought and thought, but they had not found any polite way of tellingthe Phoenix that they did not want it to stay any longer.
The days had been days spent by the children in embarrassment, and bythe Phoenix in sleep.
And, now the matting was laid down, the Phoenix awoke and fluttered downon to it.
It shook its crested head.
'I like not this carpet,' it said; 'it is harsh and unyielding, and ithurts my golden feet.'
'We've jolly well got to get used to its hurting OUR golden feet,' saidCyril.
'This, then,' said the bird, 'supersedes the Wishing Carpet.'
'Yes,' said Robert, 'if you mean that it's instead of it.'
'And the magic web?' inquired the Phoenix, with sudden eagerness.
'It's the rag-and-bottle man's day to-morrow,' said Anthea, in a lowvoice; 'he will take it away.'
The Phoenix fluttered up to its favourite perch on the chair-back.
'Hear me
!' it cried, 'oh youthful children of men, and restrain yourtears of misery and despair, for what must be must be, and I would notremember you, thousands of years hence, as base ingrates and crawlingworms compact of low selfishness.'
'I should hope not, indeed,' said Cyril.
'Weep not,' the bird went on; 'I really do beg that you won't weep.
I will not seek to break the news to you gently. Let the blow fall atonce. The time has come when I must leave you.'
All four children breathed forth a long sigh of relief.
'We needn't have bothered so about how to break the news to it,'whispered Cyril.
'Ah, sigh not so,' said the bird, gently. 'All meetings end in partings.I must leave you. I have sought to prepare you for this. Ah, do not giveway!'
'Must you really go--so soon?' murmured Anthea. It was what she hadoften heard her mother say to calling ladies in the afternoon.
'I must, really; thank you so much, dear,' replied the bird, just asthough it had been one of the ladies.
'I am weary,' it went on. 'I desire to rest--after all the happeningsof this last moon I do desire really to rest, and I ask of you one lastboon.'
'Any little thing we can do,' said Robert.
Now that it had really come to parting with the Phoenix, whose favouritehe had always been, Robert did feel almost as miserable as the Phoenixthought they all did.
'I ask but the relic designed for the rag-and-bottle man. Give me whatis left of the carpet and let me go.'
'Dare we?' said Anthea. 'Would mother mind?'
'I have dared greatly for your sakes,' remarked the bird.
'Well, then, we will,' said Robert.
The Phoenix fluffed out its feathers joyously.
'Nor shall you regret it, children of golden hearts,' it said.'Quick--spread the carpet and leave me alone; but first pile high thefire. Then, while I am immersed in the sacred preliminary rites, do yeprepare sweet-smelling woods and spices for the last act of parting.'
The children spread out what was left of the carpet. And, after all,though this was just what they would have wished to have happened, allhearts were sad. Then they put half a scuttle of coal on the fire andwent out, closing the door on the Phoenix--left, at last, alone with thecarpet.
'One of us must keep watch,' said Robert, excitedly, as soon as theywere all out of the room, 'and the others can go and buy sweet woods andspices. Get the very best that money can buy, and plenty of them.Don't let's stand to a threepence or so. I want it to have a jolly goodsend-off. It's the only thing that'll make us feel less horrid inside.'
It was felt that Robert, as the pet of the Phoenix, ought to have thelast melancholy pleasure of choosing the materials for its funeral pyre.
'I'll keep watch if you like,' said Cyril. 'I don't mind. And, besides,it's raining hard, and my boots let in the wet. You might call and seeif my other ones are "really reliable" again yet.'
So they left Cyril, standing like a Roman sentinel outside the doorinside which the Phoenix was getting ready for the great change, andthey all went out to buy the precious things for the last sad rites.
'Robert is right,' Anthea said; 'this is no time for being careful aboutour money. Let's go to the stationer's first, and buy a whole packet oflead-pencils. They're cheaper if you buy them by the packet.'
This was a thing that they had always wanted to do, but it needed thegreat excitement of a funeral pyre and a parting from a beloved Phoenixto screw them up to the extravagance.
The people at the stationer's said that the pencils were realcedar-wood, so I hope they were, for stationers should always speakthe truth. At any rate they cost one-and-fourpence. Also they spentsevenpence three-farthings on a little sandal-wood box inlaid withivory.
'Because,' said Anthea, 'I know sandalwood smells sweet, and when it'sburned it smells very sweet indeed.'
'Ivory doesn't smell at all,' said Robert, 'but I expect when you burnit it smells most awful vile, like bones.'
At the grocer's they bought all the spices they could remember the namesof--shell-like mace, cloves like blunt nails, peppercorns, the longand the round kind; ginger, the dry sort, of course; and the beautifulbloom-covered shells of fragrant cinnamon. Allspice too, and carawayseeds (caraway seeds that smelt most deadly when the time came forburning them).
Camphor and oil of lavender were bought at the chemist's, and also alittle scent sachet labelled 'Violettes de Parme'.
They took the things home and found Cyril still on guard. When they hadknocked and the golden voice of the Phoenix had said 'Come in,' theywent in.
There lay the carpet--or what was left of it--and on it lay an egg,exactly like the one out of which the Phoenix had been hatched.
The Phoenix was walking round and round the egg, clucking with joy andpride.
'I've laid it, you see,' it said, 'and as fine an egg as ever I laid inall my born days.'
Every one said yes, it was indeed a beauty.
The things which the children had bought were now taken out of theirpapers and arranged on the table, and when the Phoenix had beenpersuaded to leave its egg for a moment and look at the materials forits last fire it was quite overcome.
'Never, never have I had a finer pyre than this will be. You shall notregret it,' it said, wiping away a golden tear. 'Write quickly: "Go andtell the Psammead to fulfil the last wish of the Phoenix, and returninstantly".'
But Robert wished to be polite and he wrote--
'Please go and ask the Psammead to be so kind as to fulfil the Phoenix'slast wish, and come straight back, if you please.' The paper was pinnedto the carpet, which vanished and returned in the flash of an eye.
Then another paper was written ordering the carpet to take the eggsomewhere where it wouldn't be hatched for another two thousand years.The Phoenix tore itself away from its cherished egg, which it watchedwith yearning tenderness till, the paper being pinned on, the carpethastily rolled itself up round the egg, and both vanished for ever fromthe nursery of the house in Camden Town.
'Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!' said everybody.
'Bear up,' said the bird; 'do you think _I_ don't suffer, being partedfrom my precious new-laid egg like this? Come, conquer your emotions andbuild my fire.'
'OH!' cried Robert, suddenly, and wholly breaking down, 'I can't BEARyou to go!'
The Phoenix perched on his shoulder and rubbed its beak softly againsthis ear.
'The sorrows of youth soon appear but as dreams,' it said. 'Farewell,Robert of my heart. I have loved you well.'
The fire had burnt to a red glow. One by one the spices and sweet woodswere laid on it. Some smelt nice and some--the caraway seeds and theViolettes de Parme sachet among them--smelt worse than you would thinkpossible.
'Farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell!' said the Phoenix, in afar-away voice.
'Oh, GOOD-BYE,' said every one, and now all were in tears.
The bright bird fluttered seven times round the room and settled in thehot heart of the fire. The sweet gums and spices and woods flared andflickered around it, but its golden feathers did not burn. It seemed togrow red-hot to the very inside heart of it--and then before the eighteyes of its friends it fell together, a heap of white ashes, and theflames of the cedar pencils and the sandal-wood box met and joined aboveit.
'Whatever have you done with the carpet?' asked mother next day.
'We gave it to some one who wanted it very much. The name began with aP,' said Jane.
The others instantly hushed her.
'Oh, well, it wasn't worth twopence,' said mother.
'The person who began with P said we shouldn't lose by it,' Jane went onbefore she could be stopped.
'I daresay!' said mother, laughing.
But that very night a great box came, addressed to the children by alltheir names. Eliza never could remember the name of the carrier whobrought it. It wasn't Carter Paterson or the Parcels Delivery.
It was instantly opened. It was a big wooden box, and it had tobe opened with a hammer and
the kitchen poker; the long nails camesqueaking out, and boards scrunched as they were wrenched off. Insidethe box was soft paper, with beautiful Chinese patterns on it--blue andgreen and red and violet. And under the paper--well, almost everythinglovely that you can think of. Everything of reasonable size, I mean;for, of course, there were no motors or flying machines or thoroughbredchargers. But there really was almost everything else. Everything thatthe children had always wanted--toys and games and books, and chocolateand candied cherries and paint-boxes and photographic cameras, and allthe presents they had always wanted to give to father and mother and theLamb, only they had never had the money for them. At the very bottomof the box was a tiny golden feather. No one saw it but Robert, and hepicked it up and hid it in the breast of his jacket, which had beenso often the nesting-place of the golden bird. When he went to bed thefeather was gone. It was the last he ever saw of the Phoenix.
Pinned to the lovely fur cloak that mother had always wanted was apaper, and it said--
'In return for the carpet. With gratitude.--P.'
You may guess how father and mother talked it over. They decided atlast the person who had had the carpet, and whom, curiously enough, thechildren were quite unable to describe, must be an insane millionairewho amused himself by playing at being a rag-and-bone man. But thechildren knew better.
They knew that this was the fulfilment, by the powerful Psammead, of thelast wish of the Phoenix, and that this glorious and delightful boxfulof treasures was really the very, very, very end of the Phoenix and theCarpet.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends