Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  ‘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.
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br />   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?’ wa
s 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.’