Read Ebook: The House of Cariboo and Other Tales from Arcadia by Gardiner A Paul Graef Robert A Illustrator

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Ebook has 610 lines and 28582 words, and 13 pages

THE JOURNEY'S END

"PIP"

BOOK ONE

"FIRST, THE INFANT ..."

"PIP"

THE PHILANTHROPISTS

IT was to Pipette that the idea originally occurred, but it was upon Pip that parental retribution subsequently fell, Pipette being merely dismissed with a caution. This clemency was due chiefly to the intercession of Cook, who stated, in the r?le of principal witness, that the "poor lamb" "could never have thought of such a thing by herself." This in spite of the poor lamb's indignant protests to the contrary. In this matter, as in many others, Cook showed both personal bias and want of judgment; for Pipette was as sharp as a needle, while Pip, though a willing accomplice and a philosophical scapegoat, was lacking in constructive ability and organising power.

But we have somehow begun at the end of the story, so must make a fresh start.

The Consulting Room, which was strictly out of bounds , contained many absorbingly interesting and mysterious objects, whose uses Pip and Pipette were dying to know. For instance, there was the Oven Door. It was set in the wall near the fireplace, miles up,--quite five feet,--and was exactly like the oven in the kitchen, except that it was green instead of black. Also, it had a beautiful gold handle. It was not hot, though, for one day Pip climbed on a chair to feel; neither did it open, for he was unable to turn the handle.

They had asked Mr. Evans about it, and he had informed them that it was a place to put bad little boys and girls in. But that was on a day when Mr. Evans was cross, having just had words with Cook about the disgraceful delay between the fish and joint at last night's dinner. Pipette, therefore, outwardly incredulous but inwardly quaking, appealed to Cook, and asked confidentially if the strange thing were not an oven; whereupon Cook embraced her and presented her with an apple, and wondered what the little precious would get into her poor head next, adding as an afterthought that Mr. Evans ought to be ashamed of himself. Pipette was so pleased with the apple and the task of conveying Cook's message to Mr. Evans's pantry--this was the name of the place where he lived; there was a delightful thing there called the Filter, with a little tap that you could turn on if no one was looking--that she quite forgot to ask what the Oven Door really was; so the mystery remained unsolved for many a day.

There were other wonderful things lying about. Books in plenty , and two or three curious little articles like wooden trumpets, called "stuffyscopes." It was impossible to play tunes on these, though, and they puzzled the children sorely, until one joyful day when Pipette was taken with a cold on her chest, and Father--the name of the big, silent man who kissed them twice a day--took her into the Consulting Room and used one of those very instruments "to listen to my tummy wiv," as she afterwards explained to the envious Pip, who had not been permitted to be present.

"Did it hurt much?" inquired Pip.

This suggestion was adopted, and the new game kept them occupied for quite ten minutes. After that Pipette surrendered unconditionally. To hold your tongue is bad enough, but to hold your breath as well, in competition with a small, silent boy with a solemn face, serious eyes, and lungs apparently of gutta-percha, who seems to suffer no inconvenience from feats of endurance that would exhaust a Red Indian, is more than a mere daughter of Eve can compass.

They were in the Consulting Room at the time, Father having gone out, as he always did between eleven and one; and the various unexplained mysteries of that delightful apartment, which were becoming a serious strain upon Pipette's feminine curiosity, once more lay before them. For the hundredth time they made the tour of the room, gazing, fingering, and wondering.

They merely sighed as they passed the Oven Door. That mysterious portal was past all comprehension. They had made one last effort to obtain first-hand information on the subject only last night, with highly unsatisfactory results. They were always taken to the dining-room at half-past seven to say good-night to Father, who to his numerous other eccentricities added that of eating his dinner at an hour when properly constituted people were going to bed. On this occasion the pair had entered the dining-room bound by the most deadly oaths known to childhood to break down their shyness, and ask once and for all what lay behind the Oven Door. But alas! desire outran performance, and both--all three, in fact--made a sorry mess of things. The big man, almost as shy of them as they were of him, asked Pip, heavily but kindly, how he had spent the afternoon; not because he wished to know, but because the question afforded a conversational opening. Pip replied politely that he had been down the street posting a letter with "one of the girls." He used the expression in all good faith: his firm friend the milkman cried it down the area every afternoon in some such form as, "Anything fresh to-day, girls?" or, "Well, girls, what news?" The big man, however, frowned, and said, "Come, come, sir, no kitchen manners here, if you please," and turned to Pipette, who, with a boldness surprising to herself, was endeavouring to climb on to his knee.

Having reached that eminence, Pipette, assuming a certain coaxing expression which she had found absolutely infallible with Cook, and not without a certain effect on Mr. Evans himself, said rather tremulously--

Mr. Evans, who up to this point had been standing in the background, listening to the conversation with an indulgent smile, suddenly remembered that it was time to bring the fish up.

Her father glanced down upon Pipette curiously. He looked tired and worried, as West-End physicians with enormous practices not infrequently do.

Pipette began to quail. This big man was cross about something, just like Mr. Evans when he had "indergestion." Her lip began to tremble.

Here Father, much to Pipette's surprise and embarrassment, suddenly hugged her to his breast, murmuring the while to himself. Then he kissed her twice,--as a rule she kissed him once,--shook hands solemnly with Pip, and despatched them to bed.

So the Oven Door had to remain an unsolved mystery, and Pip and Pipette were compelled to comfort themselves with the Talking-Hole. This was a most absorbing affair, and, thank goodness! it was no mystery.

The Talking-Hole was carefully plugged with a whistle; and whenever a visitor came to see Father,--they came in shoals between one o'clock and three,--Mr. Evans would uncork a similar hole in the wall of the hall, and after blowing up it vigorously, would murmur the name of the visitor; and his words, owing to the fact that the Talking-Hole in the hall was in some mysterious way connected with the Talking-Hole in the Consulting Room, were conveyed to Father's ear. The conversation as a rule was of a formal and fragmentary nature, limited on Mr. Evans's part to the announcement of the visitor's name and some such remark as "Special appointment," or "No appointment," and occasionally, "Urgent case,"--always concluding with "Very good, sir." After that Mr. Evans would conduct the visitor up the three carpeted stairs which led to the Consulting Room.

Pip and Pipette loved the Talking-Hole. It was almost their only toy, and it was the more precious to them because they could not use it except when Father was out and Mr. Evans taking his afternoon siesta. Their one child-friend, Tattie Fowler, who was occasionally brought to spend the afternoon with them when her nurse had made arrangements to spend it elsewhere, was always regaled with a full-dress performance whenever she came.

The method of procedure was invariably the same. The children knew every move by heart. The moment that Mr. Evans, having closed the front door on Father, had closed his bedroom door upon himself, Pip would stalk with much majesty into the Consulting Room, shutting the door carefully behind him.

After an interval of about one second, Tattie, endeavouring faithfully to imitate Mr. Evans's stately tread,--have you ever seen a kitten trying to walk like an elephant, reader?--would approach the Talking-Hole in the hall, uncork the tube, and despatch an excited hurricane on its way to the Consulting Room. The following dialogue would then ensue:--

Then Tattie would cork up the tube and conduct Pipette, who had been sitting patiently in the Waiting Room, up the three stairs to the Consulting Room. Here she abruptly dropped the r?le of Mr. Evans, and announced firmly--

"Now, Pip, it's my turn to be Father!"

Each of them played the leading part in different fashion. Pip, enjoying every moment of his impersonation, always sat solemnly in the big swivel-chair at the table until the whistle blew, when he would lounge across to the Talking-Hole and conduct the conversation as deliberately as possible. Pipette, on the other hand, possessed none of this artistic restraint, and was always standing on a chair, with her small ear ecstatically pressed against the mouth of the tube, by the time that Pip, in the character of Mr. Evans, was ready to converse with her. Consequently his withering blast, when it arrived, impinged straight upon Pipette's eardrum, frequently knocking her off her chair and invariably dulling her hearing for the afternoon.

"It must be a long hole," remarked Pip reflectively to his sister.

The conversation then turned upon the weather. Mr. Pipes announced to the sympathetic Emily that, as a result of having to sit all day in a blooming greenhouse, his feet were slowly turning to ice. The authorities of the Orspital, he added bitterly, declined to allow him a fire, alleging that an oil-stove was sufficient for his needs.

"What a shime!" said pretty Emily.

"Something crool!" exclaimed sympathetic Pipette.

"Pore devil!" remarked Pip dispassionately.

"Master Pip!" cried the scandalised Emily, blushing in a manner which Mr. Pipes thought most becoming.

Pip, who had just gathered this pearl of speech from the lips of one of the hatless young gentlemen who talked of "Ops," turned his steady and inscrutable gaze upon Emily, beneath which that damsel's fetching frown faded, as it always did, into an uneasy smirk.

"There is something about that child," she once confided to Cook, "that makes me feel as weak as water. Looks at you as though your 'air was coming down on your face smudged. Says nothink, but he's a masterful one. Be a terror some day!"

Meanwhile Pipette, in whose charitable little soul a new and splendid scheme of outdoor relief had just sprung into being, asked, in a tone of suppressed excitement--

"As straight as straight, me lady," replied Mr. Pipes, who affected an easy jocularity when conversing with Pipette.

"Ooh!" Pipette turned to her brother.

"Pip, amind me to tell you somethin' when we get home."

Pip turned a cold glance upon her.

"You'll tell me all about it on the way there, I expect."

"Oh, yes, you will. Women can't keep nothin' to theirselves."

This pronouncement, delivered in Mr. Evans's most impressive manner, roused Emily and Mr. Pipes to unseemly mirth, and nearly reduced Pipette to tears. Mr. Pipes remarked that Pip was a "caution," while Emily summed him up as a "cure." Shortly after that, Emily and Mr. Pipes having made a now familiar reference to "the same old spot at half-past four on Sunday," the visit terminated with the usual expressions of good-will, and the children were taken home to tea.

Pipette's offended dignity held out till next morning, when, as soon as the banging of the front door announced that Father had gone off in his brougham for his daily round, she proposed a visit to the Consulting Room.

"In the morning? What for?" said Pip.

Pipette was positively heaving with suppressed excitement.

Fearful of letting her precious secret escape too soon, she gave Pip a push in the direction of the Consulting Room and danced off to the kitchen, leaving that impassive philosopher to ruminate upon the volatile temperament of the female sex. However, he departed as bidden, and amused himself by sitting in the swing-chair, and endeavouring without success, for the hundredth time, to play a tune on a stethoscope.

Presently Pipette returned, carrying two little basins of the soup which usually served to span the yawning gulf between their breakfast and dinner.

Pip took his soup, and began to drink it.

"Stop a minute, Pip!" screamed Pipette.

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