Kipps, H. G. Wells [uplifting book club books TXT] 📗

lit her forehead and the tip of her nose. It would be all right in a minute. He wouldn’t tell them all at once. Old Kipps stood in the shop door with the banjo in his hand, breathing noisily. “The fact is, Aunt, I’ve ’ad a bit of Luck.”

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

“No fear.”

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

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

Kipps perceived his opportunity. “I ’ave,” he said; “I’ve throwed it up.”

“What for?” said Old Kipps.

“So’s to learn the banjo!”

“Goo Lord!” said Old Kipps, in horror to find himself verified.

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

“Kipps,” said Mrs. Kipps, “he’s been drinking!”

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

Pause.

“And you thrown up your place?” said Old Kipps.

“Yes,” said Kipps. “Rather!”

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

“Well,” said Mrs. Kipps, “I never did.”

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

“I shouldn’t ha’ thought that even you could ha’ been such a fool as that,” said Old Kipps.

Pause.

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

Old Kipps pursed his lips and shook his head.

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

“How d’yer know the ’ouse⁠—?”

“They told me.”

“Well,” said Old Kipps, and nodded his head portentously towards his nephew, with the corners of his mouth pulled down in a portentous, discouraging way. “Well, you are a young Gaby.”

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s somebody after your place very likely,” said Old Kipps.

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

Still⁠—perhaps a hundred pounds⁠—

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

“Got up,” said Old Kipps.

“But I answered it and went to a norfis.”

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

“I saw a nold gent, Uncle⁠—perfect gentleman. And ’e told me all about it. Mos’ respectable ’e was. Said ’is name was Watson and Bean⁠—leastways ’e was Bean. Said it was lef’ me⁠—” Kipps suddenly dived into his breast pocket. “By my Grandfather⁠—”

The old people started.

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

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

“Waddy!” said Old Kipps.

“Waddy!” said Mrs. Kipps.

“She’d never say,” said Old Kipps.

There was a long silence.

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

“Why! That young chap what was arsting questions⁠—” said Old Kipps, and regarded his wife with an eye of amazement.

“Must ’ave been,” said Mrs. Kipps.

“Must ’ave been,” said Old Kipps.

“James,” said Mrs. Kipps, in an awestricken voice, “after all⁠—perhaps⁠—it’s true!”

“’Ow much did you say?” asked Old Kipps. “ ’Ow much did you say ’ed lef’ you, me b’y?”

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

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

At last Kipps’ flaring candle went up the narrow uncarpeted staircase to the little attic that had been his shelter and refuge during all the days of his childhood and youth. His head was whirling. He had