Part 35 (1/2)
Kipps' ears were soon quite brightly red.
”Have you seen one of his plays?”
”'E's tole me about one.”
”But on the stage.”
”No. He 'asn't 'ad any on the stage yet. That's all coming....”
”Promise me,” she said in conclusion, ”you won't do anything without consulting me.”
And of course Kipps promised. ”Oo--no!”
They went on their way in silence.
”One can't know everybody,” said Helen in general.
”Of course,” said Kipps; ”in a sort of way it was him that helped me to my money.” And he indicated in a confused manner the story of the advertis.e.m.e.nt. ”I don't like to drop 'im all at once,” he added.
Helen was silent for a s.p.a.ce, and when she spoke she went off at a tangent. ”We shall live in London--soon,” she remarked. ”It's only while we are here.”
It was the first intimation she gave him of their post-nuptial prospects.
”We shall have a nice little flat somewhere, not too far west, and there we shall build up a circle of our own.”
--2
All that declining summer Kipps was the pupil lover. He made an extraordinarily open secret of his desire for self-improvement; indeed Helen had to hint once or twice that his modest frankness was excessive, and all this new circle of friends did, each after his or her manner, everything that was possible to supplement Helen's efforts and help him to ease and skill in the more cultivated circles to which he had come.
Coote was still the chief teacher, the tutor--there are so many little difficulties that a man may take to another man that he would not care to propound to the woman he loves--but they were all, so to speak, upon the staff. Even the freckled girl said to him once in a pleasant way, ”You mustn't say ”contre temps,” you must say ”contraytom,”” when he borrowed that expression from ”Manners and Rules,” and she tried at his own suggestion to give him clear ideas upon the subject of ”as” and ”has.” A certain confusion between these words was becoming evident, the first fruits of a lesson from Chitterlow on the aspirate. Hitherto he had discarded that dangerous letter almost altogether, but now he would pull up at words beginning with ”h” and draw a sawing breath--rather like a startled kitten--and then aspirate with vigour.
Said Kipps one day, ”_As_ 'e?--I should say, ah--Has 'e? Ye know I got a lot of difficulty over them two words, which is which?”
”Well, 'as' is a conjunction and 'has' is a verb.”
”I know,” said Kipps, ”but when is 'has' a conjunction and when is 'as'
a verb?”
”Well,” said the freckled girl, preparing to be very lucid. ”It's _has_ when it means one has, meaning having, but if it isn't it's _as_. As for instance one says 'e--I mean _he_--He has. But one says 'as he has.'”
”I see,” said Kipps. ”So I ought to say 'as 'e?'”
”No, if you are asking a question you say _has_ 'e--I mean he--'as he?”
She blushed quite brightly, but still clung to her air of lucidity.
”I see,” said Kipps. He was about to say something further, but he desisted. ”I got it much clearer now. _Has_ 'e? _Has_ 'e as. Yes.”
”If you remember about having.”
”Oo I will,” said Kipps.
Miss Coote specialised in Kipps' artistic development. She had early found an opinion that he had considerable artistic sensibility, his remarks on her work had struck her as decidedly intelligent, and whenever he called around to see them she would show him some work of art, now an ill.u.s.trated book, now perhaps a colour print of a Botticelli, now the Hundred Best Paintings, now ”Academy Pictures,” now a German art handbook and now some magazine of furniture and design. ”I know you like these things,” she used to say, and Kipps said, ”Oo I _do_.” He soon acquired a little armoury of appreciative sayings. When presently the Wals.h.i.+nghams took him up to the Arts and Crafts, his deportment was intelligent in the extreme. For a time he kept a wary silence and suddenly pitched upon a colour print. ”That's rather nace,”
he said to Mrs. Wals.h.i.+ngham. ”That lill' thing. There.” He always said things like that by preference to the mother rather than the daughter unless he was perfectly sure.