The cupboard under the stairs was very tight and paraffiny, however, and a silent struggle for a place on top ended in the door bursting open and discharging Jane, who rolled like a football to the feet of the servants.
"Now," said Cyril, firmly, when the cook"s hysterics had become quieter, and the housemaid had time to say what she thought of them, "don"t you begin jawing us. We aren"t going to stand it. We know too much. You"ll please make an extra special treacle roley for dinner, and we"ll have a tinned tongue."
"I daresay," said the housemaid, indignant, still in her outdoor things and with her hat very much on one side. "Don"t you come a-threatening me, Master Cyril, because I won"t stand it, so I tell you. You tell your ma about us being out? Much I care! She"ll be sorry for me when she hears about my dear great-aunt by marriage as brought me up from a child and was a mother to me. She sent for me, she did, she wasn"t expected to last the night, from the spasms going to her legs--and cook was that kind and careful she couldn"t let me go alone, so--"
"Don"t," said Anthea, in real distress. "You know where liars go to, Eliza--at least if you don"t--"
"Liars indeed!" said Eliza, "I won"t demean myself talking to you."
"How"s Mrs Wigson?" said Robert, "and DID you keep it up last night?"
The mouth of the housemaid fell open.
"Did you doss with Maria or Emily?" asked Cyril.
"How did Mrs Prosser enjoy herself?" asked Jane.
"Forbear," said Cyril, "they"ve had enough. Whether we tell or not depends on your later life," he went on, addressing the servants. "If you are decent to us we"ll be decent to you. You"d better make that treacle roley--and if I were you, Eliza, I"d do a little housework and cleaning, just for a change."
The servants gave in once and for all.
"There"s nothing like firmness," Cyril went on, when the breakfast things were cleared away and the children were alone in the nursery.
"People are always talking of difficulties with servants. It"s quite simple, when you know the way. We can do what we like now and they won"t peach. I think we"ve broken THEIR proud spirit. Let"s go somewhere by carpet."
"I wouldn"t if I were you," said the Phoenix, yawning, as it swooped down from its roost on the curtain pole. "I"ve given you one or two hints, but now concealment is at an end, and I see I must speak out."
It perched on the back of a chair and swayed to and fro, like a parrot on a swing.
"What"s the matter now?" said Anthea. She was not quite so gentle as usual, because she was still weary from the excitement of last night"s cats. "I"m tired of things happening. I shan"t go anywhere on the carpet. I"m going to darn my stockings."
"Darn!" said the Phoenix, "darn! From those young lips these strange expressions--"
"Mend, then," said Anthea, "with a needle and wool."
The Phoenix opened and shut its wings thoughtfully.
"Your stockings," it said, "are much less important than they now appear to you. But the carpet--look at the bare worn patches, look at the great rent at yonder corner. The carpet has been your faithful friend--your willing servant. How have you requited its devoted service?"
"Dear Phoenix," Anthea urged, "don"t talk in that horrid lecturing tone.
You make me feel as if I"d done something wrong. And really it is a wishing carpet, and we haven"t done anything else to it--only wishes."
"Only wishes," repeated the Phoenix, ruffling its neck feathers angrily, "and what sort of wishes? Wishing people to be in a good temper, for instance. What carpet did you ever hear of that had such a wish asked of it? But this n.o.ble fabric, on which you trample so recklessly" (every one removed its boots from the carpet and stood on the linoleum), "this carpet never flinched. It did what you asked, but the wear and tear must have been awful. And then last night--I don"t blame you about the cats and the rats, for those were its own choice; but what carpet could stand a heavy cow hanging on to it at one corner?"
"I should think the cats and rats were worse," said Robert, "look at all their claws."
"Yes," said the bird, "eleven thousand nine hundred and forty of them--I daresay you noticed? I should be surprised if these had not left their mark."
"Good gracious," said Jane, sitting down suddenly on the floor, and patting the edge of the carpet softly; "do you mean it"s WEARING OUT?"
"Its life with you has not been a luxurious one," said the Phoenix.
"French mud twice. Sand of sunny sh.o.r.es twice. Soaking in southern seas once. India once. Goodness knows where in Persia once. Musk-rat-land once. And once, wherever the cow came from. Hold your carpet up to the light, and with cautious tenderness, if YOU please."
With cautious tenderness the boys held the carpet up to the light; the girls looked, and a shiver of regret ran through them as they saw how those eleven thoousand nine hundred and forty claws had run through the carpet. It was full of little holes: there were some large ones, and more than one thin place. At one corner a strip of it was torn, and hung forlornly.
"We must mend it," said Anthea; "never mind about my stockings. I can sew them up in lumps with sewing cotton if there"s no time to do them properly. I know it"s awful and no girl would who respected herself, and all that; but the poor dear carpet"s more important than my silly stockings. Let"s go out now this very minute."
So out they all went, and bought wool to mend the carpet; but there is no shop in Camden Town where you can buy wishing-wool, no, nor in Kentish Town either. However, ordinary Scotch heather-mixture fingering seemed good enough, and this they bought, and all that day Jane and Anthea darned and darned and darned. The boys went out for a walk in the afternoon, and the gentle Phoenix paced up and down the table--for exercise, as it said--and talked to the industrious girls about their carpet.
"It is not an ordinary, ignorant, innocent carpet from Kidderminster,"
it said, "it is a carpet with a past--a Persian past. Do you know that in happier years, when that carpet was the property of caliphs, viziers, kings, and sultans, it never lay on a floor?"
"I thought the floor was the proper home of a carpet," Jane interrupted.
"Not of a MAGIC carpet," said the Phoenix; "why, if it had been allowed to lie about on floors there wouldn"t be much of it left now. No, indeed! It has lived in chests of cedarwood, inlaid with pearl and ivory, wrapped in priceless tissues of cloth of gold, embroidered with gems of fabulous value. It has reposed in the sandal-wood caskets of princesses, and in the rose-attar-scented treasure-houses of kings.
Never, never, had any one degraded it by walking on it--except in the way of business, when wishes were required, and then they always took their shoes off. And YOU--"
"Oh, DON"T!" said Jane, very near tears. "You know you"d never have been hatched at all if it hadn"t been for mother wanting a carpet for us to walk on."
"You needn"t have walked so much or so hard!" said the bird, "but come, dry that crystal tear, and I will relate to you the story of the Princess Zulieka, the Prince of Asia, and the magic carpet."
"Relate away," said Anthea--"I mean, please do."
"The Princess Zulieka, fairest of royal ladies," began the bird, "had in her cradle been the subject of several enchantments. Her grandmother had been in her day--"
But what in her day Zulieka"s grandmother had been was destined never to be revealed, for Cyril and Robert suddenly burst into the room, and on each brow were the traces of deep emotion. On Cyril"s pale brow stood beads of agitation and perspiration, and on the scarlet brow of Robert was a large black smear.
"What ails ye both?" asked the Phoenix, and it added tartly that story-telling was quite impossible if people would come interrupting like that.
"Oh, do shut up, for any sake!" said Cyril, sinking into a chair.
Robert smoothed the ruffled golden feathers, adding kindly--
"Squirrel doesn"t mean to be a beast. It"s only that the MOST AWFUL thing has happened, and stories don"t seem to matter so much. Don"t be cross. You won"t be when you"ve heard what"s happened."
"Well, what HAS happened?" said the bird, still rather crossly; and Anthea and Jane paused with long needles poised in air, and long needlefuls of Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool drooping from them.
"The most awful thing you can possibly think of," said Cyril. "That nice chap--our own burglar--the police have got him, on suspicion of stolen cats. That"s what his brother"s missis told me."
"Oh, begin at the beginning!" cried Anthea impatiently.
"Well, then, we went out, and down by where the undertaker"s is, with the china flowers in the window--you know. There was a crowd, and of course we went to have a squint. And it was two bobbies and our burglar between them, and he was being dragged along; and he said, "I tell you them cats was GIVE me. I got "em in exchange for me milking a cow in a bas.e.m.e.nt parlour up Camden Town way."
"And the people laughed. Beasts! And then one of the policemen said perhaps he could give the name and address of the cow, and he said, no, he couldn"t; but he could take them there if they"d only leave go of his coat collar, and give him a chance to get his breath. And the policeman said he could tell all that to the magistrate in the morning. He didn"t see us, and so we came away."
"Oh, Cyril, how COULD you?" said Anthea.
"Don"t be a pudding-head," Cyril advised. "A fat lot of good it would have done if we"d let him see us. No one would have believed a word we said. They"d have thought we were kidding. We did better than let him see us. We asked a boy where he lived and he told us, and we went there, and it"s a little greengrocer"s shop, and we bought some Brazil nuts.
Here they are." The girls waved away the Brazil nuts with loathing and contempt.