The House of Arden, E. Nesbit [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

purposeful way. She crossed the hall and went through the green baize door into the other house; went along its corridor and up its dusty stairs⁠—up, and up, and up⁠—

“We’ve looked everywhere here,” said Edred, but Elfrida did not stop for that.

“I know I’m going straight to it,” she said. “Oh! do try to believe a little, or we shall never find anything,” and went on along the corridor, where the spiders had draped the picture-frames with their grey crape curtains. There were many doors in this corridor, and Elfrida stopped suddenly at one of them⁠—a door just like the others.

“This,” she said, putting her hand out till it rested on the panel, all spread out like a pink starfish⁠—“this is the door.”

She felt for the handle, turned it, and went in, still pulling at Edred’s hand and with the blue scarf still on her eyes. Edred followed.

“I say!” he said, and then she pulled off the scarf.

The door closed itself very softly behind them.

They were in a long attic room close under the roof⁠—a room that they had certainly, in all their explorings, never found before. There were no windows⁠—the roof sloped down at the sides almost to the floor. There was no ceiling⁠—old worm-eaten roof-beams showed the tiles between⁠—and old tie-beams crossed it so that as you stared up it looked like a great ladder with the rungs very far apart. Here and there through the chinks of the tiles a golden dusty light filtered in, and outside was the “tick, tick” of moving pigeon feet, the rustling of pigeon feathers, the “cooroocoo” of pigeon voices. The long room was almost bare; only along each side, close under the roof, was a row of chests, and no two chests were alike.

“Oh!” said Edred. “I’m kind and wise now. I feel it inside me. So now we’ve got the treasure. We’ll rebuild the castle.”

He got to the nearest chest and pushed at the lid, but Elfrida had to push too before he could get the heavy thing up. And when it was up, alas! there was no treasure in the chest⁠—only folded clothes.

So then they tried the next chest.

And in all the chests there was no treasure at all⁠—only clothes. Clothes, and more clothes again.

“Well, never mind,” said Elfrida, trying to speak comfortably. “They’ll be splendid for dressing up in.”

“That’s all very well,” said Edred, “but I want the treasure.”

“Perhaps,” said Elfrida, with some want of tact⁠—“perhaps you’re not ‘good and wise’ yet. Not quite, I mean,” she hastened to add. “Let’s take the things out and look at them. Perhaps the treasure’s in the pockets.”

But it wasn’t⁠—not a bit of it; not even a threepenny-bit.

The clothes in the first chest were full riding cloaks and long boots, short-waisted dresses and embroidered scarves, tight breeches and coats with bright buttons. There were very interesting waistcoats and odd-shaped hats. One, a little green one, looked as though it would fit Edred. He tried it on. And at the same minute Elfrida lifted out a little straw bonnet trimmed with blue ribbons. “Here’s one for me,” she said, and put it on.

And then it seemed as though the cooing and rustling of the pigeons came right through the roof and crowded round them in a sort of dazzlement and cloud of pigeon noises. The pigeon noises came closer and closer, and garments were drawn out of the chest and put on the children. They did not know how it was done, any more than you do⁠—but it seemed, somehow, that the pigeon noises were like hands that helped, and presently there the two children stood in clothing such as they had never worn. Elfrida had a short-waisted dress of green-sprigged cotton, with a long and skimpy skirt. Her square-toed brown shoes were gone, and her feet wore flimsy sandals. Her arms were bare, and a muslin handkerchief was folded across her chest. Edred wore very white trousers that came right up under his arms, a blue coat with brass buttons, and a sort of frilly tucker round his neck.

“I say!” they both said, when the pigeon noises had taken themselves away, and they were face to face in the long, empty room.

“That was funny,” Edred added; “let’s go down and show Mrs. Honeysett.”

But when they got out of the door they saw that Mrs. Honeysett, or someone else, must have been very busy while they were on the other side of it, for the floor of the gallery was neatly swept and polished; a strip of carpet, worn, but clean, ran along it, and prints hung straight and square on the cleanly, whitewashed walls, and there was not a cobweb to be seen anywhere. The children opened the gallery doors as they went along, and every room was neat and clean⁠—no dust, no tattered curtains, only perfect neatness and a sort of rather bare comfort showed in all the rooms. Mrs. Honeysett was in none of them. There were no workmen about, yet the baize door was gone, and in its stead was a door of old wood, very shaky and crooked.

The children ran down the passage to the parlour and burst open the door, looking for Mrs. Honeysett.

There sat a very upright old lady and a very upright old gentleman, and their clothes were not the clothes people wear nowadays. They were like the clothes the children themselves had on. The old lady was hemming a fine white frill; the old gentleman was reading what looked like a page from some newspaper.

“Hoity-toity,” said the old lady very severely; “we forget our manners, I think. Make your curtsey, miss.”

Elfrida made one as well as she could.

“To teach you respect for your elders,” said the old gentleman, “you had best get by heart one of Dr. Watts’s Divine and Moral Songs. I leave you to see to it, my lady.”

He laid down the sheet and went out, very straight and dignified, and without quite knowing how it happened the children found themselves sitting on two little