Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  A crowd instantly collected. Yells are very unusual at bazaars, and every one was intensely interested. It was several seconds before the three free children could make Mrs Biddle understand that what she was walking on was not a schoolroom floor, or even, as she presently supposed, a dropped pin-cushion, but the living hand of a suffering child. When she became aware that she really had hurt him, she grew very angry indeed. When people have hurt other people by accident, the one who does the hurting is always much the angriest. I wonder why.

  ‘I’m very sorry, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Biddle; but she spoke more in anger than in sorrow. ‘Come out! whatever do you mean by creeping about under the stalls, like earwigs?’

  ‘We were looking at the things in the corner.’

  ‘Such nasty, prying ways,’ said Mrs Biddle, ‘will never make you successful in life. There’s nothing there but packing and dust.’

  ‘Oh, isn’t there!’ said Jane. ‘That’s all you know.’

  ‘Little girl, don’t be rude,’ said Mrs Biddle, flushing violet.

  ‘She doesn’t mean to be; but there ARE some nice things there, all the same,’ said Cyril; who suddenly felt how impossible it was to inform the listening crowd that all the treasures piled on the carpet were mother’s contributions to the bazaar. No one would believe it; and if they did, and wrote to thank mother, she would think — well, goodness only knew what she would think. The other three children felt the same.

  ‘I should like to see them,’ said a very nice lady, whose friends had disappointed her, and who hoped that these might be belated contributions to her poorly furnished stall.

  She looked inquiringly at Robert, who said, ‘With pleasure, don’t mention it,’ and dived back under Mrs Biddle’s stall.

  ‘I wonder you encourage such behaviour,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘I always speak my mind, as you know, Miss Peasmarsh; and, I must say, I am surprised.’ She turned to the crowd. ‘There is no entertainment here,’ she said sternly. ‘A very naughty little boy has accidentally hurt himself, but only slightly. Will you please disperse? It will only encourage him in naughtiness if he finds himself the centre of attraction.’

  The crowd slowly dispersed. Anthea, speechless with fury, heard a nice curate say, ‘Poor little beggar!’ and loved the curate at once and for ever.

  Then Robert wriggled out from under the stall with some Benares brass and some inlaid sandalwood boxes.

  ‘Liberty!’ cried Miss Peasmarsh. ‘Then Charles has not forgotten, after all.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Mrs Biddle, with fierce politeness, ‘these objects are deposited behind MY stall. Some unknown donor who does good by stealth, and would blush if he could hear you claim the things. Of course they are for me.’

  ‘My stall touches yours at the corner,’ said poor Miss Peasmarsh, timidly, ‘and my cousin did promise—’

  The children sidled away from the unequal contest and mingled with the crowd. Their feelings were too deep for words — till at last Robert said —

  ‘That stiff-starched PIG!’

  ‘And after all our trouble! I’m hoarse with gassing to that trousered lady in India.’

  ‘The pig-lady’s very, very nasty,’ said Jane.

  It was Anthea who said, in a hurried undertone, ‘She isn’t very nice, and Miss Peasmarsh is pretty and nice too. Who’s got a pencil?’

  It was a long crawl, under three stalls, but Anthea did it. A large piece of pale blue paper lay among the rubbish in the corner.

  She folded it to a square and wrote upon it, licking the pencil at every word to make it mark quite blackly: ‘All these Indian things are for pretty, nice Miss Peasmarsh’s stall.’ She thought of adding, ‘There is nothing for Mrs Biddle;’ but she saw that this might lead to suspicion, so she wrote hastily: ‘From an unknown donna,’ and crept back among the boards and trestles to join the others.

  So that when Mrs Biddle appealed to the bazaar committee, and the corner of the stall was lifted and shifted, so that stout clergymen and heavy ladies could get to the corner without creeping under stalls, the blue paper was discovered, and all the splendid, shining Indian things were given over to Miss Peasmarsh, and she sold them all, and got thirty-five pounds for them.

  ‘I don’t understand about that blue paper,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘It looks to me like the work of a lunatic. And saying you were nice and pretty! It’s not the work of a sane person.’

  Anthea and Jane begged Miss Peasmarsh to let them help her to sell the things, because it was their brother who had announced the good news that the things had come. Miss Peasmarsh was very willing, for now her stall, that had been SO neglected, was surrounded by people who wanted to buy, and she was glad to be helped. The children noted that Mrs Biddle had not more to do in the way of selling than she could manage quite well. I hope they were not glad — for you should forgive your enemies, even if they walk on your hands and then say it is all your naughty fault. But I am afraid they were not so sorry as they ought to have been.

  It took some time to arrange the things on the stall. The carpet was spread over it, and the dark colours showed up the brass and silver and ivory things. It was a happy and busy afternoon, and when Miss Peasmarsh and the girls had sold every single one of the little pretty things from the Indian bazaar, far, far away, Anthea and Jane went off with the boys to fish in the fishpond, and dive into the bran-pie, and hear the cardboard band, and the phonograph, and the chorus of singing birds that was done behind a screen with glass tubes and glasses of water.

  They had a beautiful tea, suddenly presented to them by the nice curate, and Miss Peasmarsh joined them before they had had more than three cakes each. It was a merry party, and the curate was extremely pleasant to every one, ‘even to Miss Peasmarsh,’ as Jane said afterwards.

  ‘We ought to get back to the stall,’ said Anthea, when no one could possibly eat any more, and the curate was talking in a low voice to Miss Peas marsh about ‘after Easter’.

  ‘There’s nothing to go back for,’ said Miss Peasmarsh gaily; ‘thanks to you dear children we’ve sold everything.’

  ‘There — there’s the carpet,’ said Cyril.

  ‘Oh,’ said Miss Peasmarsh, radiantly, ‘don’t bother about the carpet. I’ve sold even that. Mrs Biddle gave me ten shillings for it. She said it would do for her servant’s bedroom.’

  ‘Why,’ said Jane, ‘her servants don’t HAVE carpets. We had cook from her, and she told us so.’

  ‘No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, if YOU please,’ said the curate, cheerfully; and Miss Peasmarsh laughed, and looked at him as though she had never dreamed that any one COULD be so amusing. But the others were struck dumb. How could they say, ‘The carpet is ours!’ For who brings carpets to bazaars?

  The children were now thoroughly wretched. But I am glad to say that their wretchedness did not make them forget their manners, as it does sometimes, even with grown-up people, who ought to know ever so much better.

  They said, ‘Thank you very much for the jolly tea,’ and ‘Thanks for being so jolly,’ and ‘Thanks awfully for giving us such a jolly time;’ for the curate had stood fish-ponds, and bran-pies, and phonographs, and the chorus of singing birds, and had stood them like a man. The girls hugged Miss Peasmarsh, and as they went away they heard the curate say —

  ‘Jolly little kids, yes, but what about — you will let it be directly after Easter. Ah, do say you will—’

  And Jane ran back and said, before Anthea could drag her away, ‘What are you going to do after Easter?’

  Miss Peasmarsh smiled and looked very pretty indeed. And the curate said —

  ‘I hope I am going to take a trip to the Fortunate Islands.’

  ‘I wish we could take you on the wishing carpet,’ said Jane.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the curate, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t wait for that. I must go to the Fortunate Islands before they make me a bishop. I should have no time afterwards.’

  ‘I’ve always thought I should marry a bishop,’ said Ja
ne: ‘his aprons would come in so useful. Wouldn’t YOU like to marry a bishop, Miss Peasmarsh?’

  It was then that they dragged her away.

  As it was Robert’s hand that Mrs Biddle had walked on, it was decided that he had better not recall the incident to her mind, and so make her angry again. Anthea and Jane had helped to sell things at the rival stall, so they were not likely to be popular.

  A hasty council of four decided that Mrs Biddle would hate Cyril less than she would hate the others, so the others mingled with the crowd, and it was he who said to her —

  ‘Mrs Biddle, WE meant to have that carpet. Would you sell it to us? We would give you—’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Biddle. ‘Go away, little boy.’

  There was that in her tone which showed Cyril, all too plainly, the hopelessness of persuasion. He found the others and said —

  ‘It’s no use; she’s like a lioness robbed of its puppies. We must watch where it goes — and — Anthea, I don’t care what you say. It’s our own carpet. It wouldn’t be burglary. It would be a sort of forlorn hope rescue party — heroic and daring and dashing, and not wrong at all.’

  The children still wandered among the gay crowd — but there was no pleasure there for them any more. The chorus of singing birds sounded just like glass tubes being blown through water, and the phonograph simply made a horrid noise, so that you could hardly hear yourself speak. And the people were buying things they couldn’t possibly want, and it all seemed very stupid. And Mrs Biddle had bought the wishing carpet for ten shillings. And the whole of life was sad and grey and dusty, and smelt of slight gas escapes, and hot people, and cake and crumbs, and all the children were very tired indeed.

  They found a corner within sight of the carpet, and there they waited miserably, till it was far beyond their proper bedtime. And when it was ten the people who had bought things went away, but the people who had been selling stayed to count up their money.

  ‘And to jaw about it,’ said Robert. ‘I’ll never go to another bazaar as long as ever I live. My hand is swollen as big as a pudding. I expect the nails in her horrible boots were poisoned.’

  Just then some one who seemed to have a right to interfere said —

  ‘Everything is over now; you had better go home.’

  So they went. And then they waited on the pavement under the gas lamp, where ragged children had been standing all the evening to listen to the band, and their feet slipped about in the greasy mud till Mrs Biddle came out and was driven away in a cab with the many things she hadn’t sold, and the few things she had bought — among others the carpet. The other stall-holders left their things at the school till Monday morning, but Mrs Biddle was afraid some one would steal some of them, so she took them in a cab.

  The children, now too desperate to care for mud or appearances, hung on behind the cab till it reached Mrs Biddle’s house. When she and the carpet had gone in and the door was shut Anthea said —

  ‘Don’t let’s burgle — I mean do daring and dashing rescue acts — till we’ve given her a chance. Let’s ring and ask to see her.’

  The others hated to do this, but at last they agreed, on condition that Anthea would not make any silly fuss about the burglary afterwards, if it really had to come to that.

  So they knocked and rang, and a scared-looking parlourmaid opened the front door. While they were asking for Mrs Biddle they saw her. She was in the dining-room, and she had already pushed back the table and spread out the carpet to see how it looked on the floor.

  ‘I knew she didn’t want it for her servants’ bedroom,’ Jane muttered.

  Anthea walked straight past the uncomfortable parlourmaid, and the others followed her. Mrs Biddle had her back to them, and was smoothing down the carpet with the same boot that had trampled on the hand of Robert. So that they were all in the room, and Cyril, with great presence of mind, had shut the room door before she saw them.

  ‘Who is it, Jane?’ she asked in a sour voice; and then turning suddenly, she saw who it was. Once more her face grew violet — a deep, dark violet. ‘You wicked daring little things!’ she cried, ‘how dare you come here? At this time of night, too. Be off, or I’ll send for the police.’

  ‘Don’t be angry,’ said Anthea, soothingly, ‘we only wanted to ask you to let us have the carpet. We have quite twelve shillings between us, and—’

  ‘How DARE you?’ cried Mrs Biddle, and her voice shook with angriness.

  ‘You do look horrid,’ said Jane suddenly.

  Mrs Biddle actually stamped that booted foot of hers. ‘You rude, barefaced child!’ she said.

  Anthea almost shook Jane; but Jane pushed forward in spite of her.

  ‘It really IS our nursery carpet,’ she said, ‘you ask ANY ONE if it isn’t.’

  ‘Let’s wish ourselves home,’ said Cyril in a whisper.

  ‘No go,’ Robert whispered back, ‘she’d be there too, and raving mad as likely as not. Horrid thing, I hate her!’

  ‘I wish Mrs Biddle was in an angelic good temper,’ cried Anthea, suddenly. ‘It’s worth trying,’ she said to herself.

  Mrs Biddle’s face grew from purple to violet, and from violet to mauve, and from mauve to pink. Then she smiled quite a jolly smile.

  ‘Why, so I am!’ she said, ‘what a funny idea! Why shouldn’t I be in a good temper, my dears.’

  Once more the carpet had done its work, and not on Mrs Biddle alone. The children felt suddenly good and happy.

  ‘You’re a jolly good sort,’ said Cyril. ‘I see that now. I’m sorry we vexed you at the bazaar to-day.’

  ‘Not another word,’ said the changed Mrs Biddle. ‘Of course you shall have the carpet, my dears, if you’ve taken such a fancy to it. No, no; I won’t have more than the ten shillings I paid.’

  ‘It does seem hard to ask you for it after you bought it at the bazaar,’ said Anthea; ‘but it really IS our nursery carpet. It got to the bazaar by mistake, with some other things.’

  ‘Did it really, now? How vexing!’ said Mrs Biddle, kindly. ‘Well, my dears, I can very well give the extra ten shillings; so you take your carpet and we’ll say no more about it. Have a piece of cake before you go! I’m so sorry I stepped on your hand, my boy. Is it all right now?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Robert. ‘I say, you ARE good.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mrs Biddle, heartily. ‘I’m delighted to be able to give any little pleasure to you dear children.’

  And she helped them to roll up the carpet, and the boys carried it away between them.

  ‘You ARE a dear,’ said Anthea, and she and Mrs Biddle kissed each other heartily.

  ‘WELL!’ said Cyril as they went along the street.

  ‘Yes,’ said Robert, ‘and the odd part is that you feel just as if it was REAL — her being so jolly, I mean — and not only the carpet making her nice.’

  ‘Perhaps it IS real,’ said Anthea, ‘only it was covered up with crossness and tiredness and things, and the carpet took them away.’

  ‘I hope it’ll keep them away,’ said Jane; ‘she isn’t ugly at all when she laughs.’

  The carpet has done many wonders in its day; but the case of Mrs Biddle is, I think, the most wonderful. For from that day she was never anything like so disagreeable as she was before, and she sent a lovely silver tea-pot and a kind letter to Miss Peasmarsh when the pretty lady married the nice curate; just after Easter it was, and they went to Italy for their honeymoon.

  CHAPTER 5. THE TEMPLE

  ‘I wish we could find the Phoenix,’ said Jane. ‘It’s much better company than the carpet.’

  ‘Beastly ungrateful, little kids are,’ said Cyril.

  ‘No, I’m not; only the carpet never says anything, and it’s so helpless. It doesn’t seem able to take care of itself. It gets sold, and taken into the sea, and things like that. You wouldn’t catch the Phoenix getting sold.’

  It was two days after the bazaar. Every one was a little cross — some days are like that, usuall
y Mondays, by the way. And this was a Monday.

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder if your precious Phoenix had gone off for good,’ said Cyril; ‘and I don’t know that I blame it. Look at the weather!’

  ‘It’s not worth looking at,’ said Robert. And indeed it wasn’t.

  ‘The Phoenix hasn’t gone — I’m sure it hasn’t,’ said Anthea. ‘I’ll have another look for it.’

  Anthea looked under tables and chairs, and in boxes and baskets, in mother’s work-bag and father’s portmanteau, but still the Phoenix showed not so much as the tip of one shining feather.

  Then suddenly Robert remembered how the whole of the Greek invocation song of seven thousand lines had been condensed by him into one English hexameter, so he stood on the carpet and chanted —

  ‘Oh, come along, come along, you good old beautiful Phoenix,’

  and almost at once there was a rustle of wings down the kitchen stairs, and the Phoenix sailed in on wide gold wings.

  ‘Where on earth HAVE you been?’ asked Anthea. ‘I’ve looked everywhere for you.’

  ‘Not EVERYWHERE,’ replied the bird, ‘because you did not look in the place where I was. Confess that that hallowed spot was overlooked by you.’

  ‘WHAT hallowed spot?’ asked Cyril, a little impatiently, for time was hastening on, and the wishing carpet still idle.

  ‘The spot,’ said the Phoenix, ‘which I hallowed by my golden presence was the Lutron.’

  ‘The WHAT?’

  ‘The bath — the place of washing.’

  ‘I’m sure you weren’t,’ said Jane. ‘I looked there three times and moved all the towels.’

  ‘I was concealed,’ said the Phoenix, ‘on the summit of a metal column — enchanted, I should judge, for it felt warm to my golden toes, as though the glorious sun of the desert shone ever upon it.’

  ‘Oh, you mean the cylinder,’ said Cyril: ‘it HAS rather a comforting feel, this weather. And now where shall we go?’

  And then, of course, the usual discussion broke out as to where they should go and what they should do. And naturally, every one wanted to do something that the others did not care about.