CHAPTER 7. MEWS FROM PERSIA
When you hear that the four children found themselves at WaterlooStation quite un-taken-care-of, and with no one to meet them, it maymake you think that their parents were neither kind nor careful. But ifyou think this you will be wrong. The fact is, mother arranged with AuntEmma that she was to meet the children at Waterloo, when they went backfrom their Christmas holiday at Lyndhurst. The train was fixed, but notthe day. Then mother wrote to Aunt Emma, giving her careful instructionsabout the day and the hour, and about luggage and cabs and things, andgave the letter to Robert to post. But the hounds happened to meet nearRufus Stone that morning, and what is more, on the way to the meet theymet Robert, and Robert met them, and instantly forgot all about postingAunt Emma's letter, and never thought of it again until he andthe others had wandered three times up and down the platform atWaterloo--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 surethat Aunt Emma was not there. Then suddenly the true truth of what hehad forgotten to do came home to Robert, and he said, 'Oh, crikey!' andstood still with his mouth open, and let a porter with a Gladstone bagin each hand and a bundle of umbrellas under one arm blunder heavilyinto 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 atthe knee, and he staggered, but he said nothing.
When the others understood what was the matter I think they told Robertwhat 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 seeus 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 ofmatinees 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 waspleased, because it's Bob's fault we're not met. Don't I know the sortof thing?' said Cyril. 'Besides, we've no tin. No; we've got enough fora growler among us, but not enough for tickets to the New Forest. Wemust just go home. They won't be so savage when they find we've reallygot home all right. You know auntie was only going to take us home in acab.'
'I believe we ought to go to Croydon,' Anthea insisted.
'Aunt Emma would be out to a dead cert,' said Robert. 'Those Jevonses goto the theatre every afternoon, I believe. Besides, there's the Phoenixat 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-fashionedkind with straw in the bottom--and he was asked by Anthea to drive themvery carefully to their address. This he did, and the price he askedfor doing so was exactly the value of the gold coin grandpapa had givenCyril for Christmas. This cast a gloom; but Cyril would never havestooped to argue about a cab-fare, for fear the cabman should think hewas not accustomed to take cabs whenever he wanted them. For a reasonthat was something like this he told the cabman to put the luggageon the steps, and waited till the wheels of the growler had grittilyretired before he rang the bell.
'You see,' he said, with his hand on the handle, 'we don't want cookand Eliza asking us before HIM how it is we've come home alone, as if wewere 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 anyoneinside the house who hears it. I can't tell you why that is--but so itis.
'I expect they're changing their dresses,' said Jane.
'Too late,' said Anthea, 'it must be past five. I expect Eliza's gone topost a letter, and cook's gone to see the time.'
Cyril rang again. And the bell did its best to inform the listeningchildren that there was really no one human in the house. They rangagain and listened intently. The hearts of all sank low. It is aterrible thing to be locked out of your own house, on a dark, muggyJanuary 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 blewit out, and they're suffocated in their beds. Father always said theywould 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 hisown 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 itwanted to stay in the bathroom cupboard, and I thought it would be allright, because the servants never clean that out. But if it's gone andgot out and been choked by gas--And besides, directly we open the doorwe shall be choked, too. I KNEW we ought to have gone to Aunt Emma, atCroydon. Oh, Squirrel, I wish we had. Let's go NOW.'
'Shut up,' said her brother, briefly. 'There's some one rattling thelatch inside.' Every one listened with all its ears, and every one stoodback as far from the door as the steps would allow.
The latch rattled, and clicked. Then the flap of the letter-box lifteditself--every one saw it by the flickering light of the gas-lamp thatshone through the leafless lime-tree by the gate--a golden eye seemed towink 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 ofrelief, as to be a sort of whispered shout.
'Hush!' said the voice from the letter-box slit. 'Your slaves have gonea-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 breadlies--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 thehouse, and there is a green gate labelled 'Tradesmen's Entrance', whichis always kept bolted. But if you get one foot on the fence between youand next door, and one on the handle of the gate, you are over beforeyou know where you are. This, at least, was the experience of Cyril andRobert, and even, if the truth must be told, of Anthea and Jane. So inalmost no time all four were in the narrow gravelled passage that runsbetween that house and the next.
Then Robert made a back, and Cyril hoisted himself up and got hisknicker-bockered knee on the concrete window-sill. He dived into thepantry head first, as one dives into water, and his legs waved in theair as he went, just as your legs do when you are first beginningto learn to dive. The soles of his boots--squarish muddypatches--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 outsidehere with just Anthea, and have something creep up behind us out of thedark. Squirrel can go and open the back door.'
A light had sprung awake in the pantry. Cyril always said the Phoenixturned 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 himselfwith matches, and then forgot all about it. He let the others in by theback door. And when it had been bolted again the children went all overthe house and lighted every single gas-jet they could find. For theycouldn't help feeling that this was just the dark dreary winter'sevening when an armed burglar might easily be expected to appear at anymoment. There is nothing like light when you are afraid of burglars--orof anything else, for that matter.
And when all the gas-jets were lighted it was quite clear that thePhoenix 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 thePhoenix, and the carpet, and the blackbeetles who lived in the cupboardson each side of the nursery fire-place. These last were very pleasedthat the children had come
home again, especially when Anthea hadlighted the nursery fire. But, as usual, the children treated the lovinglittle blackbeetles with coldness and disdain.
I wonder whether you know how to light a fire? I don't mean how tostrike a match and set fire to the corners of the paper in a firesomeone 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 oneyourself you may remember how it is done. First, she raked out the ashesof the fire that had burned there a week ago--for Eliza had actuallynever done this, though she had had plenty of time. In doing this Antheaknocked her knuckle and made it bleed. Then she laid the largest andhandsomest cinders in the bottom of the grate. Then she took a sheetof old newspaper (you ought never to light a fire with to-day'snewspaper--it will not burn well, and there are other reasons againstit), and tore it into four quarters, and screwed each of these into aloose ball, and put them on the cinders; then she got a bundle of woodand broke the string, and stuck the sticks in so that their front endsrested 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 shebroke it, two of the sticks jumped up and hit her on the cheek. Then sheput more cinders and some bits of coal--no dust. She put most of thaton her hands, but there seemed to be enough left for her face. Thenshe lighted the edges of the paper balls, and waited till she heard thefizz-crack-crack-fizz of the wood as it began to burn. Then she went andwashed her hands and face under the tap in the back kitchen.
Of course, you need not bark your knuckles, or cut your finger, orbruise 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 countryfires are lighted in a different and prettier way.
But it is always good to wash your hands and face afterwards, whereveryou are.
While Anthea was delighting the poor little blackbeetles with thecheerful blaze, Jane had set the table for--I was going to say tea, butthe meal of which I am speaking was not exactly tea. Let us call it atea-ish meal. There was tea, certainly, for Anthea's fire blazed andcrackled so kindly that it really seemed to be affectionately invitingthe kettle to come and sit upon its lap. So the kettle was brought andtea made. But no milk could be found--so every one had six lumps ofsugar to each cup instead. The things to eat, on the other hand, werenicer than usual. The boys looked about very carefully, and found inthe pantry some cold tongue, bread, butter, cheese, and part of a coldpudding--very much nicer than cook ever made when they were at home. Andin the kitchen cupboard was half a Christmassy cake, a pot of strawberryjam, and about a pound of mixed candied fruit, with soft crumbly slabsof 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 andpolitely to all they had to tell it about their visit to Lyndhurst,and underneath the table, by just stretching a toe down rather far, thefaithful carpet could be felt by all--even by Jane, whose legs were veryshort.
'Your slaves will not return to-night,' said the Phoenix. 'They sleepunder 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'ssister-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 Isuppose we ought to wash up.'
'It's not our business about the leave,' said Cyril, firmly, 'but Isimply won't wash up for them. We got it, and we'll clear it away; andthen we'll go somewhere on the carpet. It's not often we get a chanceof being out all night. We can go right away to the other side of theequator, to the tropical climes, and see the sun rise over the greatPacific Ocean.'
'Right you are,' said Robert. 'I always did want to see the SouthernCross and the stars as big as gas-lamps.'
'DON'T go,' said Anthea, very earnestly, 'because I COULDN'T. I'm SUREmother wouldn't like us to leave the house and I should hate to be lefthere alone.'
'I'd stay with you,' said Jane loyally.
'I know you would,' said Anthea gratefully, 'but even with you I'd muchrather not.'
'Well,' said Cyril, trying to be kind and amiable, 'I don't want you todo 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 sometimesyou KNOW. And this is a KNOW time.'
The Phoenix turned kind golden eyes on her and opened a friendly beak tosay--
'When it is, as you say, a "know time", there is no more to be said. Andyour 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 waypossible. I will go personally--either by carpet or on the wing--andfetch you anything you can think of to amuse you during the evening. Inorder to waste no time I could go while you wash up.--Why,' it went onin 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 beganat the bottom and went up feet first as you washed. I wish cook wouldtry that way for a change.'
'I don't,' said Cyril, briefly. 'I should hate the look of herelastic-side boots sticking up.'
'This is mere trifling,' said the Phoenix. 'Come, decide what I shallfetch for you. I can get you anything you like.'
But of course they couldn't decide. Many things were suggested--arocking-horse, jewelled chessmen, an elephant, a bicycle, a motor-car,books with pictures, musical instruments, and many other things. Buta musical instrument is agreeable only to the player, unless he haslearned to play it really well; books are not sociable, bicycles cannotbe ridden without going out of doors, and the same is true of motor-carsand elephants. Only two people can play chess at once with one set ofchessmen (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 thediscussion, the Phoenix spread its wings and fluttered to the floor, andfrom there it spoke.
'I gather,' it said, 'from the carpet, that it wants you to let it goto its old home, where it was born and brought up, and it will returnwithin the hour laden with a number of the most beautiful and delightfulproducts of its native land.'
'What IS its native land?'
'I didn't gather. But since you can't agree, and time is passing, andthe tea-things are not washed down--I mean washed up--'
'I votes we do,' said Robert. 'It'll stop all this jaw, anyway. And it'snot bad to have surprises. Perhaps it's a Turkey carpet, and it mightbring us Turkish delight.'
'Or a Turkish patrol,' said Robert.
'Or a Turkish bath,' said Anthea.
'Or a Turkish towel,' said Jane.
'Nonsense,' Robert urged, 'it said beautiful and delightful, and towelsand baths aren't THAT, however good they may be for you. Let it go. Isuppose it won't give us the slip,' he added, pushing back his chair andstanding up.
'Hush!' said the Phoenix; 'how can you? Don't trample on its feelingsjust because it's only a carpet.'
'But how can it do it--unless one of us is on it to do the wishing?'asked Robert. He spoke with a rising hope that it MIGHT be necessary forone to go and why not Robert? But the Phoenix quickly threw cold wateron his new-born dream.
'Why, you just write your wish on a paper, and pin it on the carpet.'
So a leaf was torn from Anthea's arithmetic book, and on it Cyril wrotein large round-hand the following:
We wish you to go to your dear native home, and bring back the mostbeautiful and delightful productions of it you can--and not to be gonelong, please.
(Signed) CYRIL. ROBERT. ANTHEA. JANE.
Then the paper was laid on the carpet.
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'Writing down, please,' said the Phoenix; 'the carpet can't read a paperwhose back is turned to it, any more than you can.'
It was pinned fast, and the table and chairs having been moved, thecarpet simply and suddenly vanished, rather like a patch of water on ahearth under a fierce fire. The edges got smaller and smaller, and thenit disappeared from sight.
'It may take it some time to collect the beautiful and delightfulthings,' said the Phoenix. 'I should wash up--I mean wash down.'
So they did. There was plenty of hot water left in the kettle, and everyone helped--even the Phoenix, who took up cups by their handles with itsclever claws and dipped them in the hot water, and then stood them onthe table ready for Anthea to dry them. But the bird was rather slow,because, as it said, though it was not above any sort of honest work,messing about with dish-water was not exactly what it had been broughtup to. Everything was nicely washed up, and dried, and put in its properplace, and the dish-cloth washed and hung on the edge of the copperto dry, and the tea-cloth was hung on the line that goes across thescullery. (If you are a duchess's child, or a king's, or a person ofhigh social position's child, you will perhaps not know the differencebetween a dish-cloth and a tea-cloth; but in that case your nurse hasbeen better instructed than you, and she will tell you all about it.)And just as eight hands and one pair of claws were being dried on theroller-towel behind the scullery door there came a strange sound fromthe other side of the kitchen wall--the side where the nursery was. Itwas a very strange sound, indeed--most odd, and unlike any other soundsthe children had ever heard. At least, they had heard sounds as muchlike it as a toy engine's whistle is like a steam siren's.
'The carpet's come back,' said Robert; and the others felt that he wasright.
'But what has it brought with it?' asked Jane. 'It sounds likeLeviathan, that great beast.'
'It couldn't have been made in India, and have brought elephants? Evenbaby ones would be rather awful in that room,' said Cyril. 'I vote wetake it in turns to squint through the keyhole.'
They did--in the order of their ages. The Phoenix, being the eldest bysome thousands of years, was entitled to the first peep. But--
'Excuse me,' it said, ruffling its golden feathers and sneezing softly;'looking through keyholes always gives me a cold in my golden eyes.'
So Cyril looked.
'I see something grey moving,' said he.
'It's a zoological garden of some sort, I bet,' said Robert, when he hadtaken his turn. And the soft rustling, bustling, ruffling, scuffling,shuffling, fluffling noise went on inside.
'_I_ can't see anything,' said Anthea, 'my eye tickles so.'
Then Jane's turn came, and she put her eye to the keyhole.
'It's a giant kitty-cat,' she said; 'and it's asleep all over thefloor.'
'Giant cats are tigers--father said so.'
'No, he didn't. He said tigers were giant cats. It's not at all the samething.'
'It's no use sending the carpet to fetch precious things for youif you're afraid to look at them when they come,' said the Phoenix,sensibly. And Cyril, being the eldest, said--
'Come on,' and turned the handle.
The gas had been left full on after tea, and everything in the roomcould be plainly seen by the ten eyes at the door. At least, noteverything, for though the carpet was there it was invisible, because itwas completely covered by the hundred and ninety-nine beautiful objectswhich it had brought from its birthplace.
'My hat!' Cyril remarked. 'I never thought about its being a PERSIANcarpet.'
Yet it was now plain that it was so, for the beautiful objects which ithad brought back were cats--Persian cats, grey Persian cats, and therewere, as I have said, 199 of them, and they were sitting on the carpetas close as they could get to each other. But the moment the childrenentered the room the cats rose and stretched, and spread and overflowedfrom the carpet to the floor, and in an instant the floor was a sea ofmoving, mewing pussishness, and the children with one accord climbed tothe table, and gathered up their legs, and the people next door knockedon the wall--and, indeed, no wonder, for the mews were Persian andpiercing.
'This is pretty poor sport,' said Cyril. 'What's the matter with thebounders?'
'I imagine that they are hungry,' said the Phoenix. 'If you were to feedthem--'
'We haven't anything to feed them with,' said Anthea in despair, and shestroked the nearest Persian back. 'Oh, pussies, do be quiet--we can'thear ourselves think.'
She had to shout this entreaty, for the mews were growing deafening,'and it would take pounds' and pounds' worth of cat's-meat.'
'Let's ask the carpet to take them away,' said Robert. But the girlssaid 'No.'
'They are so soft and pussy,' said Jane.
'And valuable,' said Anthea, hastily. 'We can sell them for lots andlots of money.'
'Why not send the carpet to get food for them?' suggested the Phoenix,and its golden voice came harsh and cracked with the effort it had to bemake to be heard above the increasing fierceness of the Persian mews.
So it was written that the carpet should bring food for 199 Persiancats, and the paper was pinned to the carpet as before.
The carpet seemed to gather itself together, and the cats dropped offit, as raindrops do from your mackintosh when you shake it. And thecarpet disappeared.
Unless you have had one-hundred and ninety-nine well-grown Persian catsin one small room, all hungry, and all saying so in unmistakable mews,you can form but a poor idea of the noise that now deafened the childrenand the Phoenix. The cats did not seem to have been at all properlybrought up. They seemed to have no idea of its being a mistake inmanners to ask for meals in a strange house--let alone to howl forthem--and they mewed, and they mewed, and they mewed, and they mewed,till the children poked their fingers into their ears and waited insilent agony, wondering why the whole of Camden Town did not comeknocking at the door to ask what was the matter, and only hoping thatthe food for the cats would come before the neighbours did--and beforeall the secret of the carpet and the Phoenix had to be given away beyondrecall to an indignant neighbourhood.
The cats mewed and mewed and twisted their Persian forms in and out andunfolded their Persian tails, and the children and the Phoenix huddledtogether on the table.
The Phoenix, Robert noticed suddenly, was trembling.
'So many cats,' it said, 'and they might not know I was the Phoenix.These accidents happen so quickly. It quite un-mans me.'
This was a danger of which the children had not thought.
'Creep in,' cried Robert, opening his jacket.
And the Phoenix crept in--only just in time, for green eyes had glared,pink noses had sniffed, white whiskers had twitched, and as Robertbuttoned his coat he disappeared to the waist in a wave of eager greyPersian fur. And on the instant the good carpet slapped itself down onthe floor. And it was covered with rats--three hundred and ninety-eightof them, I believe, two for each cat.
'How horrible!' cried Anthea. 'Oh, take them away!'
'Take yourself away,' said the Phoenix, 'and me.'
'I wish we'd never had a carpet,' said Anthea, in tears.
They hustled and crowded out of the door, and shut it, and locked it.Cyril, with great presence of mind, lit a candle and turned off the gasat the main.
'The rats'll have a better chance in the dark,' he said.
The mewing had ceased. Every one listened in breathless silence. We allknow that cats eat rats--it is one of the first things we read in ourlittle brown reading books; but all those cats eating all those rats--itwouldn't bear thinking of.
Suddenly Robert sniffed, in the silence of the dark kitchen, where theonly candle was burning all on one side, because of the draught.
'What a funny scent!' he said.
And as he spoke, a lantern flashed its light through the window of thekitchen, a face peered in, and a voice said--
'What's all this row about? You let me in.'
It was the voice of the police!
Rober
t tip-toed to the window, and spoke through the pane that hadbeen a little cracked since Cyril accidentally knocked it with awalking-stick when he was playing at balancing it on his nose. (It wasafter they had been to a circus.)
'What do you mean?' he said. 'There's no row. You listen; everything'sas quiet as quiet.' And indeed it was.
The strange sweet scent grew stronger, and the Phoenix put out its beak.
The policeman hesitated.
'They're MUSK-rats,' said the Phoenix. 'I suppose some cats eatthem--but never Persian ones. What a mistake for a well-informed carpetto make! Oh, what a night we're having!'
'Do go away,' said Robert, nervously. 'We're just going to bed--that'sour bedroom candle; there isn't any row. Everything's as quiet as amouse.'
A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were mingledthe shrieks of the musk-rats. What had happened? Had the cats tastedthem before deciding that they disliked the flavour?
'I'm a-coming in,' said the policeman. 'You've got a cat shut up there.'
'A cat,' said Cyril. 'Oh, my only aunt! A cat!'
'Come in, then,' said Robert. 'It's your own look out. I advise you not.Wait a shake, and I'll undo the side gate.'
He undid the side gate, and the policeman, very cautiously, came in. Andthere in the kitchen, by the light of one candle, with the mewingand the screaming going like a dozen steam sirens, twenty waiting onmotor-cars, and half a hundred squeaking pumps, four agitated voicesshouted to the policeman four mixed and wholly different explanations ofthe very mixed events of the evening.
Did you ever try to explain the simplest thing to a policeman?