The Phoenix and the Carpet E. Nesbit (read more books .TXT) 📖

how it looked on the floor.

“I knew she didn’t want it for her servants’ bedroom,” Jane muttered.

Anthea walked straight past the uncomfortable parlourmaid, and the others followed her. Mrs. Biddle had her back to them, and was smoothing down the carpet with the same boot that had trampled on the hand of Robert. So that they were all in the room, and Cyril, with great presence of mind, had shut the room door before she saw them.

“Who is it, Jane?” she asked in a sour voice; and then turning suddenly, she saw who it was. Once more her face grew violet⁠—a deep, dark violet. “You wicked daring little things!” she cried, “how dare you come here? At this time of night, too. Be off, or I’ll send for the police.”

“Don’t be angry,” said Anthea, soothingly, “we only wanted to ask you to let us have the carpet. We have quite twelve shillings between us, and⁠—”

“How dare you?” cried Mrs. Biddle, and her voice shook with angriness.

“You do look horrid,” said Jane suddenly.

Mrs. Biddle actually stamped that booted foot of hers. “You rude, barefaced child!” she said.

Anthea almost shook Jane; but Jane pushed forward in spite of her.

“It really is our nursery carpet,” she said, “you ask anyone if it isn’t.”

“Let’s wish ourselves home,” said Cyril in a whisper.

“No go,” Robert whispered back, “she’d be there too, and raving mad as likely as not. Horrid thing, I hate her!”

“I wish Mrs. Biddle was in an angelic good temper,” cried Anthea, suddenly. “It’s worth trying,” she said to herself.

Mrs. Biddle’s face grew from purple to violet, and from violet to mauve, and from mauve to pink. Then she smiled quite a jolly smile.

“Why, so I am!” she said, “what a funny idea! Why shouldn’t I be in a good temper, my dears.”

Once more the carpet had done its work, and not on Mrs. Biddle alone. The children felt suddenly good and happy.

“You’re a jolly good sort,” said Cyril. “I see that now. I’m sorry we vexed you at the bazaar today.”

“Not another word,” said the changed Mrs. Biddle. “Of course you shall have the carpet, my dears, if you’ve taken such a fancy to it. No, no; I won’t have more than the ten shillings I paid.”

“It does seem hard to ask you for it after you bought it at the bazaar,” said Anthea; “but it really is our nursery carpet. It got to the bazaar by mistake, with some other things.”

“Did it really, now? How vexing!” said Mrs. Biddle, kindly. “Well, my dears, I can very well give the extra ten shillings; so you take your carpet and we’ll say no more about it. Have a piece of cake before you go! I’m so sorry I stepped on your hand, my boy. Is it all right now?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Robert. “I say, you are good.”

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Biddle, heartily. “I’m delighted to be able to give any little pleasure to you dear children.”

And she helped them to roll up the carpet, and the boys carried it away between them.

“You are a dear,” said Anthea, and she and Mrs. Biddle kissed each other heartily.

“Well!” said Cyril as they went along the street.

“Yes,” said Robert, “and the odd part is that you feel just as if it was real⁠—her being so jolly, I mean⁠—and not only the carpet making her nice.”

“Perhaps it is real,” said Anthea, “only it was covered up with crossness and tiredness and things, and the carpet took them away.”

“I hope it’ll keep them away,” said Jane; “she isn’t ugly at all when she laughs.”

The carpet has done many wonders in its day; but the case of Mrs. Biddle is, I think, the most wonderful. For from that day she was never anything like so disagreeable as she was before, and she sent a lovely silver teapot and a kind letter to Miss Peasmarsh when the pretty lady married the nice curate; just after Easter it was, and they went to Italy for their honeymoon.

V The Temple

“I wish we could find the Phoenix,” said Jane. “It’s much better company than the carpet.”

“Beastly ungrateful, little kids are,” said Cyril.

“No, I’m not; only the carpet never says anything, and it’s so helpless. It doesn’t seem able to take care of itself. It gets sold, and taken into the sea, and things like that. You wouldn’t catch the Phoenix getting sold.”

It was two days after the bazaar. Everyone was a little cross⁠—some days are like that, usually Mondays, by the way. And this was a Monday.

“I shouldn’t wonder if your precious Phoenix had gone off for good,” said Cyril; “and I don’t know that I blame it. Look at the weather!”

“It’s not worth looking at,” said Robert. And indeed it wasn’t.

“The Phoenix hasn’t gone⁠—I’m sure it hasn’t,” said Anthea. “I’ll have another look for it.”

Anthea looked under tables and chairs, and in boxes and baskets, in mother’s workbag and father’s portmanteau, but still the Phoenix showed not so much as the tip of one shining feather.

Then suddenly Robert remembered how the whole of the Greek invocation song of seven thousand lines had been condensed by him into one English hexameter, so he stood on the carpet and chanted⁠—

“Oh, come along, come along,
you good old beautiful Phoenix,”

and almost at once there was a rustle of wings down the kitchen stairs, and the Phoenix sailed in on wide gold wings.

“Where on earth have you been?” asked Anthea. “I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

“Not everywhere,” replied the bird, “because you did not look in the place where I was. Confess that that hallowed spot was overlooked by you.”

“What hallowed spot?” asked Cyril, a little impatiently, for time was hastening on, and the wishing carpet still idle.

“The spot,” said the Phoenix, “which I hallowed by my golden presence was the Lutron.”

“The what?”

“The bath⁠—the place of washing.”

“I’m sure you weren’t,” said Jane. “I looked there three times and moved all the towels.”

“I was concealed,” said the Phoenix, “on the summit of a metal column⁠—enchanted, I should judge, for it