"Pip" Part 1

"Pip"

by Ian Hay.

BOOK ONE

"FIRST, THE INFANT ..."

"PIP"

CHAPTER I

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 role of princ.i.p.al witness, that the "poor lamb" (Pipette) "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 (and consequently a favourite resort of the children when the big, silent man, who kissed them twice a day, was out), 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 (but then books are dull things if you don't happen to be able to read), 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.

"Not _bewwy_ much," replied Pipette, unwilling to throw away a good chance of posing as a martyr. "He putted one end against his ear and the other against my pinny, and said, 'Hold your breff,' and I holded it.

Pip, I've thought of a lovely game! Let's see who can hold our breff longest."

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 compet.i.tion 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 compa.s.s.

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 pa.s.sed 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 const.i.tuted people were going to bed. (Pip's rather hazy scheme of theology, imbibed in sc.r.a.ps from Cook and others, included a private heaven of his own construction, in which at bedtime little boys, instead of being hustled upstairs by an under-housemaid, sat down to a heavy dinner of several courses.) 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, a.s.suming 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--

"Please, Father, is that oven door in the Kersultin' Room _reelly_ a oven, or is it just--just to put bad little boys and girls in, like what Mr. Evans says?"

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.

"What do you mean by 'oven door'? And what's all this nonsense about _Mr._ Evans?"

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

"I didn't fink it would make you angry," she said rather piteously. "It was just that big oven door in the Kersultin' Room. Me and Pip wanted to know so much, and there wasn't n.o.body to ask, exceptin' Mr.----"

Here Father, much to Pipette's surprise and embarra.s.sment, 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.

The children had no nurse. The last holder of that position had left soon after their mother's death, and Cook had begged so hard to be allowed to take care of the "little dears" herself, that Father, who was too deeply sunk in the apathy of grief to desire to haggle over questions of domestic management, listlessly agreed. Since then Pip and Pipette had been washed, dressed, fed, and bedded by a syndicate composed of Cook and her myrmidons, who brought them up according to their own notions of respectability. Emily, the kitchen-maid, for instance, made no objection to Pip stirring his tea with the handle of his knife; but what shocked her ideas of etiquette and deportment was the fact that he insisted on doing so with his left hand. Somehow Pip's left hand was always getting him into trouble. It was so officious; it was constantly usurping the duties and privileges of its fellow, such as cleaning his teeth, shaking hands, and blowing his nose,--literal acts of _gaucherie_ that distressed Emily's genteel soul considerably.

After the children had gone Father sat staring at his untasted dinner.

Occasionally his gaze travelled to the opposite end of the table, where some one used to sit,--some one who had been taken from him by an inscrutable Providence five years before. Had she lived, Pip would not have referred to the kitchen-maid as "one of the girls," nor would Pipette be calling the butler "Mr. Evans." All these years he had been trying to hide his desolation by burying himself in his work, with the result that he now found himself busy,--overworked, in fact,--rich, and famous, a man at the head of his profession. _Cui bono?_ His children, whom he had promised his dying Dorothea to love and cherish, were learning to venerate the butler and to converse in the jargon of the scullery!

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:--

_A gruff voice down the tube._ Well?

_Tattie_ [_reading from an imaginary card_]. Mr. Henry Hatkins, sir! (This, by the way, happened to be the name of Tattie's nurse's "young man.")

_The Voice._ Any appointment?

_Tattie._ None, sir.

_The Voice._ What's the matter wiv him?

_Tattie._ Infruenza, _he_ thinks, sir.

_The Voice._ Send him up.

_Tattie._ Very good, sir.

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 role of Mr. Evans, and announced firmly--

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

(Tattie had no father of her own, and imagined that the term merely implied a large, silent man who lived in a room full of fascinating playthings, opening Oven Doors and blowing down Talking-Holes.)

After that Pip would be the patient, Pipette Mr. Evans, and Tattie Father, and the performance was repeated _in extenso_. Pipette, as the youngest, succeeded to the proud position of "Father" last of all.

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.