§1

Next morning came a remarkable telegram from Folkestone. "Please come at once, urgent, Walshingham," said the telegram, and Kipps, after an agitated but still ample breakfast, departed….

When he returned his face was very white and his countenance disordered. He let himself in with his latchkey and came into the dining–room where Ann sat, affecting to work at a little thing she called a bib. She heard his hat fall in the hall before he entered, as though he had missed the peg. "I got something to tell you, Ann," he said, disregarding their overnight quarrel, and went to the hearthrug and took hold of the mantel, and stared at Ann as though the sight of her was novel.

"Well?" said Ann, not looking up and working a little faster.

"'E's gone!"

Ann looked up sharply and her hands stopped. "Who's gone?" For the first time she perceived Kipps' pallor.

"Young Walshingham—I saw 'er and she tole me."

"Gone? What d'you mean?"

"Cleared out! Gone off for good!"

"What for?"

"For 'is 'ealth," said Kipps, with sudden bitterness. "'E's been speckylating. He's speckylated our money and 'e's speckylated their money, and now 'e's took 'is 'ook. That's all about it, Ann."

"You mean?"

"I mean 'e's orf and our twenty–four thousand's orf, too! And 'ere we are! Smashed up! That's all about it, Ann." He panted.

Ann had no vocabulary for such an occasion. "Oh, Lor'!" she said, and sat still.

Kipps came about and stuck his hands deeply in his trouser pockets. "Speckylated every penny—lorst it all—and gorn."

Even his lips were white.

"You mean we ain't got nothin' left, Artie?"

"Not a penny! Not a bloomin' penny, Ann. No!"

A gust of passion whirled across the soul of Kipps. He flung out a knuckly fist. "If I 'ad 'im 'ere," he said, "I'd—I'd—I'd wring 'is neck for 'im. I'd—I'd―" His voice rose to a shout. He thought of Gwendolen in the kitchen and fell to "Ugh!"

"But, Artie," said Ann, trying to grasp it, "d'you mean to say he's took our money?"

"Speckylated it!" said Kipps, with an illustrative flourish of the arm, that failed to illustrate. "Bort things dear and sold 'em cheap, and played the 'ankey–pankey jackass with everything we got. That's what I mean 'e's done, Ann." He repeated this last sentence with the addition of violent adverbs.

"D'you mean to say our money's gone, Artie?"

"Ter–dash it, Yes, Ann!" swore Kipps, exploding in a shout. "Ain't I tellin' you?"

He was immediately sorry. "I didn't mean to 'oller at you, Ann," he said, "but I'm all shook up. I don't 'ardly know what I'm sayin'. Ev'ry penny."…

"But, Artie―"

Kipps grunted. He went to the window and stared for a moment at a sunlit sea. "Gord!" he swore.

"I mean," he said, coming back to Ann and with an air of exasperation, "that he's 'bezzled and 'ooked it. That's what I mean, Ann."

Ann put down the bib. "But wot are we going to do, Artie?"

Kipps indicated ignorance, wrath and despair with one comprehensive gesture of his hands. He caught an ornament from the mantel and replaced it. "I'm going to bang about," he said, "if I ain't precious careful."

"You saw 'er, you say?"

"Yes."

"What did she say 'xactly?" said Ann.

"Told me to see a s'licitor—tole me to get someone to 'elp me at once. She was there in black—like she used to be—and speaking cool and careful–like. 'Elen!…She's precious 'ard, is 'Elen. She looked at me straight. 'It's my fault,' she said, 'I ought to 'ave warned you…. Only under the circumstances it was a little difficult.' Straight as anything. I didn't 'ardly say anything to 'er. I didn't seem to begin to take it in until she was showing me out. I 'adn't anything to say. Jest as well, perhaps. She talked like a call a'most. She said—what was it she said about her mother? 'My mother's overcome with grief,' she said, 'so naturally everything comes on me.'"

"And she told you to get someone to 'elp you?"

"Yes. I been to old Bean."

"O' Bean?"

"Yes. What I took my business away from!"

"What did he say?"

"He was a bit off'and at first, but then 'e come 'round. He couldn't tell me anything till 'e knew the facts. What I know of young Walshingham, there won't be much 'elp in the facts. No!"

He reflected for a space. "It's a smash–up, Ann. More likely than not, Ann, 'e's left us over'ead in debt. We got to get out of it just 'ow we can….

"We got to begin again," he went on. "'Ow, I don't know. All the way 'ome my 'ead's been going. We got to get a living some'ow or other. 'Aving time to ourselves, and a bit of money to spend, and no hurry and worry, it's all over for ever, Ann. We was fools, Ann. We didn't know our benefits. We been caught. Gord!…Gord!"

He was on the verge of "banging about" again.

They heard a jingle in the passage, the large soft impact of a servant's indoor boots. As if she were a part, a mitigatory part of Fate, came Gwendolen to lay the midday meal. Kipps displayed self–control forthwith. Ann picked up the bib again and bent over it, and the Kippses bore themselves gloomily perhaps, but not despairfully, while their dependant was in the room. She spread the cloth and put out the cutlery with a slow inaccuracy, and Kipps, after a whisper to himself, went again to the window. Ann got up and put away her work methodically in the cheffonier.

"When I think," said Kipps, as soon as the door closed again behind Gwendolen, "when I think of the 'ole people and 'aving to tell 'em of it all—I want to smesh my 'ead against the nearest wall. Smesh my silly brains out! And Buggins—Buggins what I'd 'arf promised to start in a lill' outfitting shop in Rendezvous Street."…

Gwendolen returned and restored dignity.

The midday meal spread itself slowly before them. Gwendolen, after her custom, left the door open and Kipps closed it carefully before sitting down.

He stood for a moment, regarding the meal doubtfully.

"I don't feel as if I could swaller a moufful," he said.

"You got to eat," said Ann….

For a time they said little, and once swallowing was achieved, ate on with a sort of melancholy appetite. Each was now busy thinking.

"After all," said Kipps, presently, "whatever 'appens, they can't turn us out or sell us up before nex' quarter–day. I'm pretty sure about that."

"Sell us up!" said Ann.

"I dessey we're bankrup'," said Kipps, trying to say it easily and helping himself with a trembling hand to unnecessary potatoes.

Then a long silence. Ann ceased to eat, and there were silent tears.

"More potatoes, Artie?" choked Ann.

"I couldn't," said Kipps. "No."

He pushed back his plate, which was indeed replete with potatoes, got up and walked about the room. Even the dinner–table looked distraught and unusual.

"What to do, I don't know," he said.

"Oh, Lord!" he ejaculated, and picked up and slapped down a book.

Then his eye fell upon another postcard that had come from Chitterlow by the morning's post, and which now lay by him on the mantel–shelf. He took it up, glanced at its imperfectly legible message, and put it down.

"Delayed!" he said, scornfully. "Not prodooced in the smalls. Or is it smells 'e says? 'Ow can one understand that? Any'ow 'e's 'umbugging again…. Somefing about the Strand. No! Well, 'e's 'ad all the money 'e'll ever get out of me!…I'm done."

He seemed to find a momentary relief in the dramatic effect of his announcement. He came near to a swagger of despair upon the hearthrug, and then suddenly came and sat down next to Ann and rested his chin on the knuckles of his two clenched hands.

"I been a fool, Ann," he said in a gloomy monotone. "I been a brasted fool. But it's 'ard on us, all the same. It's 'ard."

"'Ow was you to know?" said Ann.

"I ought to 'ave known. I did in a sort of way know. And 'ere we are! I wouldn't care so much if it was myself, but it's you, Ann! 'Ere we are! Regular smashed up! And you―" He checked at an unspeakable aggravation of their disaster. "I knew 'e wasn't to be depended upon and there I left it! And you got to pay…. What's to 'appen to us all, I don't know."

He thrust out his chin and glared at fate.

"'Ow do you know 'e's speckylated everything?" said Ann, after a silent survey of him.

"'E 'as," said Kipps, irritably, holding firm to disaster.

"She say so?"

"She don't know, of course, but you depend upon it that's it. She told me she knew something was on, and when she found 'im gone and a note lef' for her she knew it was up with 'im. 'E went by the night boat. She wrote that telegram off to me straight away."

Ann surveyed his features with tender, perplexed eyes; she had never seen him so white and drawn before, and her hand rested an inch or so away from his arm. The actual loss was still, as it were, afar from her. The immediate thing was his enormous distress.

"'Ow do you know―?" she said and stopped. It would irritate him too much.

Kipps' imagination was going headlong.

"Sold up!" he emitted presently, and Ann flinched.

"Going back to work, day after day—I can't stand it, Ann, I can't. And you―"

"It don't do to think of it," said Ann.

Presently he came upon a resolve. "I keep on thinking of it, and thinking of it, and what's to be done and what's to be done. I shan't be any good 'ome s'arfernoon. It keeps on going 'round and 'round in my 'ead, and 'round and 'round. I better go for a walk or something. I'd be no comfort to you, Ann. I should want to 'owl and 'ammer things if I 'ung about 'ome. My fingers is all atwitch. I shall keep on thinking 'ow I might 'ave stopped it and callin' myself a fool."…

He looked at her between pleading and shame. It seemed like deserting her.

Ann regarded him with tear–dimmed eyes.

"You'd better do what's good for you, Artie," she said…. "I'll be best cleaning. It's no use sending off Gwendolen before her month, and the top room wants turning out." She added with a sort of grim humour: "May as well turn it out now while I got it."

"I better go for a walk," said Kipps….

And presently our poor exploded Kipps was marching out to bear his sudden misery. Habit turned him up the road towards his growing house, and then suddenly he perceived his direction—"Oh, Lor'!"—and turned aside and went up the steep way to the hill crest and the Sandling Road, and over the line by that tree–embowered Junction, and athwart the wide fields towards Postling—a little, black, marching figure—and so up the Downs and over the hills, whither he had never gone before….