He was an outcast, he had no place in the world. He had had his chance in the world and turned his back on it. He had “behaved badly”—that was the phrase. …
Here a great house was presently to arise, a house to be paid for, a house neither he nor Ann could manage—with eleven bedrooms, and four disrespectful servants having them all the time!
How had it all happened exactly?
This was the end of his great fortune! What a chance he had had! If he had really carried out his first intentions and stuck to things, how much better everything might have been! If he had got a tutor—that had been in his mind originally—a special sort of tutor to show him everything right; a tutor for gentlemen of neglected education. If he had read more and attended better to what Coote had said!
Coote, who had just cut him! …
Eleven bedrooms! What had possessed him? No one would ever come to see them, no one would ever have anything to do with them. Even his aunt cut him! His uncle treated him with a half-contemptuous sufferance. He had not a friend worth counting in the world! Buggins, Carshot, Pierce; shop assistants! The Pornicks—a low socialist lot! He stood among his foundations like a lonely figure among ruins; he stood among the ruins of his future, and owned himself a foolish and mistaken man. He saw himself and Ann living out their shameful lives in this great crazy place—as it would be—with everybody laughing secretly at them and their eleven rooms, and nobody approaching them—nobody nice and right that is, forever. And Ann!
What was the matter with Ann? She’d given up going for walks lately, got touchy and tearful, been fitful with her food. Just when she didn’t ought to. It was all a part of the judgment upon wrongdoing, it was all part of the social penalties that Juggernaut of a novel had brought home to his mind.
He let himself in with his latchkey. He went moodily into the dining-room and got out the plans to look at them. He had a vague hope that there would prove to be only ten bedrooms. But he found there were still eleven. He became aware of Ann standing over him. “Look ’ere, Artie!” said Ann.
He looked up and found her holding a number of white oblongs. His eyebrows rose.
“It’s Callers,” said Ann.
He put his plans aside slowly and took and read the cards in silence, with a sort of solemnity. Callers after all! Then perhaps he wasn’t to be left out of the world after all. Mrs. G. Porrett Smith, Miss Porrett Smith, Miss Mabel Porrett Smith, and two smaller cards of the Rev. G. Porrett Smith. “Lor’!” he said, “Clergy!”
“There was a lady,” said Ann, “and two growed-up gals—all dressed up!”
“And ’im?”
“There wasn’t no ’im.”
“Not—?” He held out the little card.
“No; there was a lady and two young ladies.”
“But—these cards! Wad they go and leave these two little cards with the Rev. G. Smith on for? Not if ’e wasn’t with ’em.”
“ ’E wasn’t with ’em.”
“Not a little chap—dodgin’ about be’ind the others? And didn’t come in?”
“I didn’t see no gentleman with them at all,” said Ann.
“Rum!” said Kipps. A half-forgotten experience came back to him. “I know,” he said, waving the reverend gentleman’s card; “ ’e give ’em the slip, that’s what he’d done. Gone off while they was rapping before you let ’em in. It’s a fair call, any’ow.” He felt a momentary base satisfaction at his absence. “What did they talk about, Ann?”
There was a pause. “I didn’t let ’em in,” said Ann.
He looked up suddenly and perceived that something unusual was the matter with Ann. Her face was flushed, her eyes were red and hard.
“Didn’t let ’em in?”
“No! They didn’t come in at all.”
He was too astonished for words.
“I answered the door,” said Ann; “I’d been upstairs ’namelling the floor. ’Ow was I to think about Callers, Artie? We ain’t never ’ad Callers all the time we been ’ere. I’d sent Gwendolen out for a bref of fresh air, and there I was upstairs ’namelling that floor she done so bad, so’s to get it done before she came back. I thought I’d ’namel that floor and then get tea and ’ave it quiet with you, toce and all, before she came back. ’Ow was I to think about Callers?”
She paused. “Well,” said Kipps, “what them?”
“They came and rapped. ’Ow was I to know? I thought it was a tradesman or something. Never took my apron off, never wiped the ’namel off my ’ands—nothing. There they was!”
She paused again. She was getting to the disagreeable part.
“Wad they say?” said Kipps.
“She says, ‘Is Mrs. Kipps at home?’ See? To me.”
“Yes.”
“And me all painty and no cap on and nothing, neither missis nor servant like. There, Artie, I could ’a sunk through the floor with shame, I really could. I could ’ardly get my voice. I couldn’t think of nothing to say but just ‘Not at ’Ome,’ and out of ’abit like I ’eld the tray. And they give me the cards and went, and ’ow I shall ever look that lady in the face again I don’t know. … And that’s all about it, Artie! They looked me up and down, they did, and then I shut the door on ’em.”
“Goo!” said Kipps.
Ann went and poked the fire needlessly with a passion quivering hand.
“I wouldn’t ’ave ’ad that ’appen for five pounds,” said Kipps. “A clergyman and all!”
Ann dropped the poker into the fender with some éclat and stood up and looked at her hot face in the glass. Kipps’ disappointment grew. “You did ought to ’ave known better than that, Ann! You reely did.”
He sat forward, cards in hand, with a deepening sense of social disaster.
