Kipps Part 52

"After all," he said, "there's hope."

"What about?" said Sid.

"Everything," said Masterman.

"Where there's life there's hope," said Mrs. Sid. "But none of you aren't eating anything like you ought to."

Masterman lifted his gla.s.s.

"Here's to Hope!" he said, "The Light of the World!"

Sid beamed at Kipps as who should say, "You don't meet a character like _this_ every dinner time."

"Here's to Hope," repeated Masterman. "The best thing one can have. Hope of life--yes."

He imposed his movement of magnificent self-pity on them all. Even young Walt was impressed.

They spent the days before their marriage in a number of agreeable excursions together. One day they went to Kew by steamboat, and admired the house full of paintings of flowers extremely; and one day they went early to have a good, long day at the Crystal Palace, and enjoyed themselves very much indeed. They got there so early that nothing was open inside, all the stalls were wrappered up and all the minor exhibitions locked and barred; they seemed the minutest creatures even to themselves in that enormous empty aisle and their echoing footsteps indecently loud. They contemplated realistic groups of plaster savages, and Ann thought they'd be queer people to have about. She was glad there were none in this country. They meditated upon replicas of cla.s.sical statuary without excessive comment. Kipps said at large, it must have been a queer world then, but Ann very properly doubted if they really went about like that. But the place at that early hour was really lonely. One began to fancy things. So they went out into the October sunshine of the mighty terraces, and wandered amidst miles of stucco tanks and about those quiet Gargantuan grounds. A great, grey emptiness it was, and it seemed marvellous to them, but not nearly so marvellous as it might have seemed. "I never see a finer place, never," said Kipps, turning to survey the entirety of the enormous gla.s.s front with Paxton's vast image in the centre.

"What it must 'ave cost to build!" said Ann, and left her sentence eloquently incomplete.

Presently they came to a region of caves and waterways, and amidst these waterways strange reminders of the possibilities of the Creator. They pa.s.sed under an arch made of a whale's jaws, and discovered amidst herbage, as if they were browsing or standing unoccupied and staring as if amazed at themselves, huge effigies of iguanodons and deinotheria and mastodons and suchlike cattle, gloriously done in green and gold.

"They got everything," said Kipps. "Earl's Court isn't a patch on it."

His mind was very greatly exercised by these monsters, and he hovered about them and returned to them. "You'd wonder 'ow they ever got enough to eat," he said several times.

--2

It was later in the day, and upon a seat in the presence of the green and gold Labyrinthodon that looms so splendidly above the lake, that the Kippses fell into talk about their future. They had made a sufficient lunch in the palace, they had seen pictures and no end of remarkable things, and that and the amber sunlight made a mood for them, quiet and philosophical, a heaven mood. Kipps broke a contemplative silence with an abrupt illusion to one princ.i.p.al preoccupation. "I shall offer an 'pology and I shall offer 'er brother damages. If she likes to bring an action for Breach after that, well--I done all I can.... They can't get much out of reading my letters in court, because I didn't write none. I dessay a thousan' or two'll settle all that, anyhow. I ain't much worried about that. That don't worry me very much, Ann--No."

And then, "It's a lark, our marrying. It's curious 'ow things come about. If I 'adn't run against you, where should I 'ave been now. Eh?...

Even after we met, I didn't seem to see it like--not marrying you I mean--until that night I came. I didn't--reely."

"I didn't neither," said Ann, with thoughtful eyes on the water.

For a time Kipps' mind was occupied by the prettiness of her thinking face. A faint, tremulous network of lights reflected from the ripples of a pa.s.sing duck, played subtly over her cheek and faded away.

Ann reflected. "I s'pose things 'ad to be," she said.

Kipps mused. "It's curious 'ow ever I got on to be engaged to 'er."

"She wasn't suited to you," said Ann.

"Suited. No fear! That's jest it. 'Ow did it come about?"

"I expect she led you on," said Ann.

Kipps was half-minded to a.s.sent. Then he had a twinge of conscience. "It wasn't that, Ann," he said. "It's curious. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't that. I don't recollect.... No.... Life's jolly rum; that's one thing any'ow. And I suppose I'm a rum sort of feller. I get excited sometimes, and then I don't seem to care _what_ I do. That's about what it was reely. Still----"

They meditated, Kipps with his arms folded and pulling at his scanty moustache. Presently a faint smile came over his face.

"We'll get a nice _little_ 'ouse out Ithe way."

"It's 'omelier than Folkestone," said Ann.

"Jest a nice _little_ 'ouse," said Kipps. "There's Hughenden, of course.

But that's let. Besides being miles too big. And I wouldn't live in Folkestone again some'ow--not for anything."

"I'd like to 'ave a 'ouse of my own," said Ann. "I've often thought, being in service, 'ow much I'd like to manage a 'ouse of my own."

"You'd know all about what the servants was up to, anyhow," said Kipps, amused.

"Servants! We don't want no servants," said Ann, startled.

"You'll 'ave to 'ave a servant," said Kipps. "If it's only to do the 'eavy work of the 'ouse."

"What! and not be able 'ardly to go into my own kitchen?" said Ann.

"You ought to 'ave a servant," said Kipps.

"One could easy 'ave a woman in for anything that's 'eavy," said Ann.

"Besides---- If I 'ad one of the girls one sees about nowadays I should want to be taking the broom out of 'er 'and and do it all over myself.

I'd manage better without 'er."

"We ought to 'ave one servant anyhow," said Kipps, "else 'ow should we manage if we wanted to go out together or anything like that?"

"I might get a _young_ girl," said Ann, "and bring 'er up in my own way."

Kipps left the matter at that and came back to the house.

"There's little 'ouses going into Hythe, just the sort we want, not too big and not too small. We'll 'ave a kitching and a dining-room and a little room to sit in of a night."

"It mustn't be a 'ouse with a bas.e.m.e.nt," said Ann.

"What's a bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"It's a downstairs, where there's not arf enough light and everything got to be carried--up and down, up and down, all day--coals and everything. And it's got to 'ave a watertap and sink and things upstairs. You'd 'ardly believe, Artie, if you 'adn't been in service, 'ow cruel and silly some 'ouses are built--you'd think they 'ad a spite against servants the way the stairs are made."

"We won't 'ave one of that sort," said Kipps....

"We'll 'ave a quiet little life. Now go out a bit--now come 'ome again.

Read a book perhaps if we got nothing else to do. 'Ave old Buggins in for an evening at times. 'Ave Sid down. There's bicycles----"

"I don't fancy myself on a bicycle," said Ann.

"'Ave a trailer," said Kipps, "and sit like a lady. I'd take you out to New Romney easy as anything jest to see the old people."