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

engagement to his Uncle and Aunt⁠—this time positively. He was now a finished cyclist, but as yet an unseasoned one; the southwest wind, even in its summer guise, as one meets it in the Marsh, is the equivalent of a reasonable hill, and ever and again he got off and refreshed himself by a spell of walking. He was walking just outside New Romney preparatory to his triumphal entry (one hand off) when abruptly he came upon Ann Pornick.

It chanced he was thinking about her at the time. He had been thinking curious things; whether, after all, the atmosphere of New Romney and the Marsh had not some difference, some faint impalpable quality that was missing in the great and fashionable world of Folkestone behind there on the hill. Here there was a homeliness, a familiarity. He had noted as he passed that old Mr. Cliffordown’s gate had been mended with a fresh piece of string. In Folkestone he didn’t take notice and he didn’t care if they built three hundred houses. Come to think of it, that was odd. It was fine and grand to have twelve hundred a year; it was fine to go about on trams and omnibuses and think not a person aboard was as rich as oneself; it was fine to buy and order this and that and never have any work to do and to be engaged to a girl distantly related to the Earl of Beauprés, but yet there had been a zest in the old time out here, a rare zest in the holidays, in sunlight, on the sea beach and in the High Street, that failed from these new things. He thought of those bright windows of holiday that had seemed so glorious to him in the retrospect from his apprentice days. It was strange that now, amidst his present splendours, they were glorious still!

All those things were over now⁠—perhaps that was it! Something had happened to the world and the old light had been turned out. He himself was changed, and Sid was changed, terribly changed, and Ann no doubt was changed.

He thought of her with the hair blown about her flushed cheeks as they stood together after their race.⁠ ⁠…

Certainly she must be changed, and all the magic she had been fraught with to the very hem of her short petticoats gone no doubt forever. And as he thought that, or before and while he thought it, for he came to all these things in his own vague and stumbling way, he looked up, and there was Ann!

She was seven years older and greatly altered; yet for the moment it seemed to him that she had not changed at all. “Ann!” he said, and she, with a lifting note, “It’s Art Kipps!”

Then he became aware of changes⁠—improvements. She was as pretty as she had promised to be, her blue eyes as dark as his memory of them, and with a quick, high colour, but now Kipps by several inches was the taller again. She was dressed in a simple grey dress that showed her very clearly as a straight and healthy little woman, and her hat was Sundayfied with pink flowers. She looked soft and warm and welcoming. Her face was alight to Kipps with her artless gladness at their encounter.

“It’s Art Kipps!” she said.

“Rather,” said Kipps.

“You got your holidays?”

It flashed upon Kipps that Sid had not told her of his great fortune. Much regretful meditation upon Sid’s behaviour had convinced him that he himself was to blame for exasperating boastfulness in that affair, and this time he took care not to err in that direction. He erred in the other.

“I’m taking a bit of a ’oliday,” he said.

“So’m I,” said Ann.

“You been for a walk?” asked Kipps.

Ann showed him a bunch of wayside flowers.

“It’s a long time since I seen you, Ann. Why, ’ow long must it be? Seven⁠—eight years nearly.”

“It don’t do to count,” said Ann.

“It don’t look like it,” said Kipps, with the slightest emphasis.

“You got a moustache,” said Ann, smelling her flowers and looking at him over them, not without admiration.

Kipps blushed.⁠ ⁠…

Presently they came to the bifurcation of the roads.

“I’m going down this way to mother’s cottage,” said Ann.

“I’ll come a bit your way if I may.”

In New Romney social distinctions that are primary realities in Folkestone are absolutely nonexistent, and it seemed quite permissible for him to walk with Ann, for all that she was no more than a servant. They talked with remarkable ease to one another, they slipped into a vein of intimate reminiscence in the easiest manner. In a little while Kipps was amazed to find Ann and himself at this:

“You r’ember that half sixpence? What you cut for me?”

“Yes.”

“I got it still.”

She hesitated. “Funny, wasn’t it?” she said, and then, “you got yours, Artie?”

“Rather,” said Kipps. “What do you think?” and wondered in his heart of hearts why he had never looked at that sixpence for so long.

Ann smiled at him frankly.

“I didn’t expect you’d keep it,” she said. “I thought often⁠—it was silly to keep mine. Besides,” she reflected, “it didn’t mean anything really.”

She glanced at him as she spoke and met his eye.

“Oh, didn’t it!” said Kipps, a little late with his response, and realising his infidelity to Helen even as he spoke.

“It didn’t mean much anyhow,” said Ann. “You still in the drapery?”

“I’m living at Folkestone,” began Kipps and decided that that sufficed. “Didn’t Sid tell you he met me?”

“No! Here?”

“Yes. The other day. ’Bout a week or more ago.”

“That was before I came.”

“Ah! that was it,” said Kipps.

“ ’E’s got on,” said Ann. “Got ’is own shop now, Artie.”

“ ’E tole me.”

They found themselves outside Muggett’s cottages. “You going in?” said Kipps.

“I s’pose so,” said Ann.

They both hung upon the pause. Ann took a plunge.

“D’you often come to New Romney?” she said.

“I ride over a bit at times,” said Kipps.

Another pause. Ann held out her hand.

“I’m glad I seen you,” she said.

Extraordinary impulses arose in neglected parts of Kipps’ being.