Kipps by H. G. Wells (distant reading txt) 📕

a still deeper uneasiness that was wreathed with yellow sea poppies, and the figures of Buggins, Pierce and Carshot, three murdered Friendships, rose reproachfully in the stillness and changed horrible apprehensions into unspeakable remorse. Last night had been their customary night for the banjo, and Kipps, with a certain tremulous uncertainty, had put old Methuselah amidst a retinue of glasses on the table and opened a box of choice cigars. In vain. They were in no need, it seemed, of his society. But instead Chitterlow had come, anxious to know if it was all right about that syndicate plan. He had declined anything but a very weak whiskey and soda, “just to drink,” at least until business was settled, and had then opened the whole affair with an effect of great orderliness to Kipps. Soon he was taking another whiskey by sheer inadvertency, and the complex fabric of his conversation was running more easily from the broad loom of his mind. Into that pattern had interwoven a narrative of extensive alterations in the Pestered Butterfly⁠—the neck and beetle business was to be restored⁠—the story of a grave difference of opinion with Mrs. Chitterlow, where and how to live after the play had succeeded, the reasons why the Hon. Thomas Norgate had never financed a syndicate, and much matter also about the syndicate now under discussion. But if the current of their conversation had been vortical and crowded, the outcome was perfectly clear. Kipps was to be the chief participator in the syndicate, and his contribution was to be two thousand pounds. Kipps groaned and rolled over and found Helen, as it were, on the other side. “Promise me,” she had said, “you won’t do anything without consulting me.”

Kipps at once rolled back to his former position, and for a space lay quite still. He felt like a very young rabbit in a trap.

Then suddenly, with extraordinary distinctness, his heart cried out for Ann, and he saw her as he had seen her at New Romney, sitting amidst the yellow sea poppies with the sunlight on her face. His heart called out for her in the darkness as one calls for rescue. He knew, as though he had known it always, that he loved Helen no more. He wanted Ann, he wanted to hold her and be held by her, to kiss her again and again, to turn his back forever on all these other things.⁠ ⁠…

He rose late, but this terrible discovery was still there, undispelled by cockcrow or the day. He rose in a shattered condition, and he cut himself while shaving, but at last he got into his dining-room and could pull the bell for the hot constituents of his multifarious breakfast. And then he turned to his letters. There were two real letters in addition to the customary electric belt advertisement, continental lottery circular and betting tout’s card. One was in a slight mourning envelope and addressed in an unfamiliar hand. This he opened first and discovered a note:

Mrs. Raymond Wace
Requests the pleasure of
Mr. Kipps’
Company at Dinner
on Tuesday, September 21st, at 8 o’clock

With a hasty movement Kipps turned his mind to the second letter. It was an unusually long one from his Uncle, and ran as follows:

“My Dear Nephew

“We are considerably startled by your letter though expecting something of the sort and disposed to hope for the best. If the young lady is a relation to the Earl of Beauprés well and good but take care you are not being imposed upon for there are many who will be glad enough to snap you up now your circumstances are altered⁠—I waited on the old Earl once while in service and he was remarkably close with his tips and suffered from corns. A hasty old gent and hard to please⁠—I daresay he has forgotten me altogether⁠—and anyhow there is no need to rake up bygones. Tomorrow is bus day and as you say the young lady is living near by we shall shut up shop for there is really nothing doing now what with all the visitors bringing everything with them down to their very children’s pails and say how de do to her and give her a bit of a kiss and encouragement if we think her suitable⁠—she will be pleased to see your old uncle⁠—We wish we could have had a look at her first but still there is not much mischief done and hoping that all will turn out well yet I am

Your affectionate Uncle

Edward George Kipps

“My heartburn still very bad. I shall bring over a few bits of rhubub I picked up, a sort you won’t get in Folkestone and if possible a good bunch of flowers for the young lady.”

“Comin’ over today,” said Kipps, standing helplessly with the letter in his hand.

“ ’Ow, the Juice⁠—?

“I carn’t.

“Kiss ’er!”

“I carn’t even face ’er⁠—!”

A terrible anticipation of that gathering framed itself in his mind⁠—a hideous, impossible disaster.

His voice went up to a note of despair, “And it’s too late to telegrarf and stop ’em!”

About twenty minutes after this, an outporter in Castle Hill Avenue was accosted by a young man, with a pale, desperate face, an exquisitely rolled umbrella and a heavy Gladstone bag.

“Carry this to the station, will you?” said the young man. “I want to ketch the nex’ train to London.⁠ ⁠… You’ll ’ave to look sharp⁠—I ’aven’t very much time.”

VII London

London was Kipps’ third world. There were no doubt other worlds, but Kipps knew only these three; firstly, New Romney and the Emporium, constituting his primary world, his world of origin, which also contained Ann; secondly, the world of culture and refinement, the world of which Coote was chaperon, and into which Kipps was presently to marry, a world it was fast becoming evident absolutely incompatible with the first, and, thirdly, a world still to a large extent unexplored, London. London presented itself as a place of great, grey spaces and incredible multitudes of people, centring about Charing Cross station and