Kipps Part 26

"I seen your brother, 'aven't I?"

"He came to the cla.s.s once or twice. Very probably you have. He's gone to London to pa.s.s his examinations and become a solicitor. And then, I suppose, he'll have a chance. Not much, perhaps, even then. But he's luckier than I am."

"You got your cla.s.ses and things."

"They ought to satisfy me. But they don't. I suppose I'm ambitious. We both are. And we hadn't much of a springboard." She glanced over his shoulder at the cramped little garden with an air of reference in her gesture.

"I should think you could do anything if you wanted to," said Kipps.

"As a matter of fact I can't do anything I want to."

"You done a good deal."

"What?"

"Well, didn't you pa.s.s one of these here University things?"

"Oh! I matriculated!"

"I should think I was no end of a swell if _I_ did, I know that."

"Mr. Kipps, do you know how many people matriculate into London University every year?"

"How many then?"

"Between two and three thousand."

"Well, just think how many don't!"

Her smile came again, and broke into a laugh. "Oh, _they_ don't count,"

she said, and then, realising that might penetrate Kipps if he was left with it, she hurried on to, "The fact is, I'm a discontented person, Mr.

Kipps. Folkestone, you know, is a Sea Front, and it values people by sheer vulgar prosperity. We're not prosperous, and we live in a back street. We have to live here because this is our house. It's a mercy we haven't to 'let.' One feels one hasn't opportunities. If one had, I suppose one wouldn't use them. Still----"

Kipps felt he was being taken tremendously into her confidence. "That's jest it," he said, very sagely.

He leant forward on his stick and said, very earnestly, "I believe you could do anything you wanted to, if you tried."

She threw out her hands in disavowal.

"I know," said he, very sagely and nodding his head. "I watched you once or twice when you were teaching that wood-carving cla.s.s."

For some reason this made her laugh--a rather pleasant laugh, and that made Kipps feel a very witty and successful person. "It's very evident,"

she said, "that you're one of those rare people who believe in me, Mr.

Kipps," to which he answered, "Oo, I _do_!" and then suddenly they became aware of Mrs. Wals.h.i.+ngham coming along the pa.s.sage. In another moment she appeared through the four seasons door, bonneted and ladylike, and a little faded, exactly as Kipps had seen her in the shop.

Kipps felt a certain apprehension at her appearance, in spite of the rea.s.surances he had had from Coote.

"Mr. Kipps has called on us," said Helen, and Mrs. Wals.h.i.+ngham said it was very kind of him, and added that new people didn't call on them very much nowadays. There was nothing of the scandalised surprise Kipps had seen in the shop; she had heard, perhaps, he was a gentleman now. In the shop he had thought her rather jaded and haughty, but he had scarcely taken her hand, which responded to his touch with a friendly pressure, before he knew how mistaken he had been. She then told her daughter that someone called Mrs. Wace had been out, and turned to Kipps again to ask him if he had had tea. Kipps said he had not, and Helen moved towards some mysterious interior. "But _I_ say," said Kipps; "don't you on my account----!"

Helen vanished, and he found himself alone with Mrs. Wals.h.i.+ngham, which, of course, made him breathless and Boreas-looking for a moment.

"You were one of Helen's pupils in the wood-carving cla.s.s?" asked Mrs.

Wals.h.i.+ngham, regarding him with the quiet watchfulness proper to her position.

"Yes," said Kipps, "that's 'ow I 'ad the pleasure----"

"She took a great interest in her wood-carving cla.s.s. She is so energetic, you know, and it gives her an Outlet."

"I thought she taught something splendid."

"Everyone says she did very well. Helen, I think, would do anything well that she undertook to do. She's so very clever. And she throws herself into things so."

She untied her bonnet strings with a pleasant informality.

"She has told me all about her cla.s.s. She used to be full of it. And about your cut hand."

"Lor'!" said Kipps; "fancy, telling that!"

"Oh, yes! And how brave you were."

(Though, indeed, Helen's chief detail had been his remarkable expedient for checking bloodshed.)

Kipps became bright pink. "She said you didn't seem to feel it a bit."

Kipps felt he would have to spend weeks over "The Art of Conversing."

While he still hung fire Helen returned with the apparatus for afternoon tea upon a tray.

"Do you mind pulling out the table?" asked Mrs. Wals.h.i.+ngham.

That, again, was very homelike. Kipps put down his hat and stick in the corner and, amidst an iron thunder, pulled out a little, rusty, green-painted table, and then in the easiest manner followed Helen in to get chairs.

So soon as he had got rid of his teacup--he refused all food, of course, and they were merciful--he became wonderfully at his ease. Presently he was talking. He talked quite modestly and simply about his changed condition and his difficulties and plans. He spread what indeed had an air of being all his simple little soul before his eyes. In a little while his clipped, defective accent had become less perceptible to their ears, and they began to realise, as the girl with the freckles had long since realised, that there were pa.s.sable aspects of Kipps. He confided, he submitted, and for both of them he had the realest, the most seductively flattering undertone of awe and reverence.

He stopped about two hours, having forgotten how terribly incorrect it is to stay at such a length. They did not mind at all.

CHAPTER III

ENGAGED

--1

Within two months, within a matter of three and fifty days, Kipps had clambered to the battlements of Heart's Desire.

It all became possible by the Wals.h.i.+nghams--it would seem at Coote's instigation--deciding, after all, not to spend the holidays at Bruges.

Instead, they remained in Folkestone, and this happy chance gave Kipps just all these opportunities of which he stood in need.